Mark Twain’s Critique of Literacy through the War Machine of Joan of Arc
Keywords:
Mark Twain, Joan of Arc, literacy critique, war machine, Deleuze and Guattari, narrative transgressionAbstract
This article analyzes Mark Twain's novel Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc (1896) through the lens of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari's concept of 'the war machine.' The paper explores how Twain's portrayal of Joan of Arc challenges traditional norms of literacy, such as rationality, objectivity, authenticity, and reliability. The author contends that Twain uses four major characters—Joan of Arc, Louis de Conte, the Paladin, and Pierre Cauchon—as war machines to undermine established literary conventions. This study examines Joan's transgression of rationality through her metastable character and supernatural qualities, as well as de Conte's demythologizing of objectivity through his subjective narrative. The article demonstrates that these violations invigorate Twain's text rather than being defects, highlighting the novel's critique of literacy-bound civilization.
(The abstract and keywords were prepared retrospectively for indexing purposes using AI-assisted tools and editorial review, based on the original article. They did not appear in the original publication.)
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