The themes of Arms and the Man are love and war and these two themes have
been
welded into a single whole with great skill. Shaw has shown that it is the romance of war
that leads to the romance of love. His treatment of these two themes is characterized by
realism. The contrast between realism and idealism is constantly stressed, and this results
in a number of entertaining situations.
As the play opens, we are introduced to Raina, a pretty, young lady with romantic views of
love and war, the result of her reading Byron and Pushkin. She stands on the balcony of her
bedroom admiring the beauty of the night, and dreaming of her fiance, Sergius, who is out
on the front fighting the Serbs. Soon her mother enters the room to inform her that Sergius
has become the hero as a result of his splendid victory in the battle. On his own initiative
ignoring the orders of his Russian commander, he made a heroic charge on the artillery of
the Serbs and put them to flight. Raina, in ecstasy, raptures kisses on the photo of her lover
and her knight. She feels that she has been a prosaic little coward in her doubts about
Sergius heroism and is unworthy of him. Sergius heroism in war feeds her romantic love of
him.
Shaws views on war are uttered through the mouth of fugitive Bluntschli. He is blunt in
everything he says, as is suggested by his name itself. First she is told the truth about
Sergius cavalry charge. It was something foolish and rash, and Sergius ought to be court-
martialed for it. He and his regiment nearly committed suicide, only the pistol missed fire.
Her heroic ideals of war, thus receive a rude shock.
And there was Con Quixote flourishing like a drum major, thinking hed done the
cleverest thing ever known,
whereas he ought to be courtmartialled for it. Of all the fools ever let loose on a
field of battle, that man must
be the very maddest. He and his regiment simply committed suicide only the
pistol missed fire.
She is told that the horseman did not really want to attack; they pulled hard at the horses,
but the horses ran away with them. The conclusion is that most soldiers are born fools and
are cowards at heart.
Nine soldiers out of ten are born fools.
Further, we are told that it is the duty of a soldier to live as long as he can, and that he
must run away to save his life. He bluntly tells her that all soldiers are afraid to die:
Some soldiers, I know, are afraid of death.
And further that is it their duty to live as long as they can.
All of them, dear lady, all of them, believe me. It is our duty to live as long as we
can.
Bluntschli himself runs away and enters the bedroom of Raina. He uses Rainas cloak as a
shield to save himself and thus directs a rude shock to her. He demands chocolate to eat
and says that he carries chocolates to the front instead of cartridges. In other words, food is
more important than ammunition in war, and the truth of this view has been amply proved
by the experiences of the two World Wars.
What use are cartridges in battle? I always carry chocolate instead.
In Bluntschli, Shaw has presented a realistic portrait of an average soldier who is ready to
fight when he must and is glad to escape when he can. Also, that a solder is an ordinary
creature of flesh and blood, who suffers from hunger and fatigue and is roused to action
only by danger. As Sergius puts it, war is a trade like any other trade; it is the cowards art
of attacking the enemy.
Soldering, my dear madam, is the cowards art of attacking mercilessly when you
are strong,
and keeping out of harms way when you are weak. That is the whole secret of
successful fighting.
Get your enemy at a disadvantage; and never, on any account, fight him on equal
terms.
War is to be fought when necessary, but there should be no praise of war. War is a brutal
affair and we should not sing songs of it. The cruelty and horror of war are highlighted
through the horrible death of the twelve soldiers burnt alive in a farm-house. In this way
idealistic notions of war are punctured.
Both Sergius and Raina are disillusioned in their romantic ideas of war and love. Raina
glorified Sergius as a hero and his heroism fed her love for him. On his return from the war,
there is higher love between them. Sergius calls her his Queen and goddess and
she calls him her King and hero. He is the medieval knight, and she is the source of
his inspiration and heroism. They glorify each other and are blind to the faults of each other.
They forget that the other is an ordinary creature of flesh and blood with common human
perfections. This is the fault of all romantic love and Shaw has focused the searchlight of
truth and reason on this fallacy. He has shown the imperfections of both Sergius and Raina.
Such romantic love is a sham lacking reality. Once Rainas back is turned, Sergius flirts with
Louka. He cannot believe that Raina can spy or she can love another. But Raina does spy
upon them and she is already in love with Bluntschli. Her words that she would like to
scandalize Sergius, and would cram with chocolates the mouth of her chocolate-cream
soldier, if she met him again, reveals the state of her heart. Love can be lasting only when
based on the understanding of reality. Higheror Spiritual love is a hoax; sexual pleasure is
necessary. Sergius fails to get this pleasure from Raina and turns to Louka. Raina turns to
Bluntschli for he is intellectually superior to Sergius and apt to be a better father to her
children. The urge of the Life Force is for procreation. Love and marriage are essential to
achieve this end. Sex must be subordinated to the Life Force instead of pleasure. The futility
of romantic love is further stressed when Nicola gives up Louka for profit. She would make a
better customer than a wife.
Shaws views on love and war are characterized by strict realism and are clearly brought out
if we compare them with that of Tolstoy. Like Tolstoy he tells men that romantic war is only
butchery and romantic love is only lust. Shaw only objects to them in so far as they are
ideal. He objects not so much to war as to the praise of war. He does not so much dislike
love as the love of love. Shaw only murmurs:
Wars if you must, but for Gods sake, not war-songs.
Shaw is quite content to say:
Do not be taken in by it.
Tolstoy seems really to propose that high passion and patriotic valour should be destroyed.
Shaw is more moderate and only asks that they should not be desecrated.
All over his career, Shaw waged a war against romantic and idealistic notions of life, against
shams and hypocrisy, and this war began with Arms and the Man. He has aptly
called Arms and the Man an anti-romantic comedy in which he has exposed the
hollowness of the romantic ideas of love and war. The play is anti-romantic because in it
Shaw has attacked the romantic idealization of life; and it is a comedy because in it he has
exposed and ridiculed the hollowness of romantic love and the heroic ideals of war. By
Romanticism Shaw means all that is not based on fact and reality; all shams and false
conventions are romantic for they are not based on facts. Their futility and absurd nature
can be easily confirmed. Shaw laughs but his laughter has a serious intention. He is both
witty and thought-provoking.
The play opens on a note of romance. Raina is a romantic girl who stands on her balcony
enjoying the beauty of the night and the snowy Balkans. She is betrothed to Sergius
a,Byronic hero, who has gone to war like knights of the Middle Ages. He makes a heroic
cavalry charge and wins a splendid victory. He becomes the hero and is adored and
worshipped by Raina. On his return home, we get a scene of higher and romantic love with
Raina calling him her hero and her king and he addressing her as his Queenand
saying that he could win the heroic victory only because she inspired him.
Both Raina and Sergius live in a world of romance. In the beginning of the play Shaw shows
how Raina doubt their romantic ideas. They are derived from the reading of Byron and
Pushkin and the seeing of romantic play. That is why their romance is soon shattered
through its very first contact with reality. Bluntschli represents solid reality. Through him
Shaw places the relevant facts and arguments before Raina and her idealistic notions of war
are soon shattered. Firstly, she is bluntly told that Sergius is a fool and block head, that he
and his regiment nearly committed suicide, only the pistol miss fire.
Of all the fools ever let loose on a field of battle, that man must be the very
maddest. He and his regiment simply committed suicide only the pistol missed
fire.
Secondly, she is told that food is more important in war than ammunition, that it is the duty
of a soldier to live as long as he can.
All of them, dear lady, all of them, believe me. It is our duty to live as long as we
can.
He also tells her that with their end in view a soldier should run away from the field, and
that:
Nine soldiers out of ten are born fools.
Gradually, Raina is made to see the facts of the case, and her romantic ideals of war are
demolished. Similarly, Sergius is disillusioned by war, and realizes that soldering is a trade
like any other trade.
soldering has to be a trade like any other trade.
It is not heroism, but the, cowards art, of mercilessly attacking when you are strong
and having your enemy at a disadvantage.
Soldering, my dear madam, is the cowards art of attacking mercilessly when you
are strong, and keeping out of harms way when you are
weak. That is the whole secret of successful fighting. Get your enemy at a
disadvantage; and never, on any account, fight him on equal terms.
Similarly, both Raina and Sergius are disillusioned in their romantic ideals of love. Sergius
finds to his great disappointment that behind his back Raina made love to Bluntschli, and
Raina discovers that her hero is made of clay and can flirt with her maid at her back.
Instinctively, she turns to Bluntschli not because he faces bullets, but because he faces
facts. He helps her to find herself, to understand reality about life. He breaks the web of
illusion woven around her, and makes her see the light of day. The hero of Slivnitza appears
in a comic light; the absurdity of his heroics is exposed and ridiculed.
Thus Shaw is a realist who places before his readers the facts of life, the truth about love
and war to make people think and understand. He spreads truth, and demolishes all that is
false and irrational by focusing on it the searchlight of logic and reason. But it must be
remembered that Shaw is not merely a realist but also an anti-romantic. His realism is not
mere photographic realism; there is also much heightening of reality. In order to achieve his
anti-romantic purpose, the dramatist resorts to exaggeration of reality which often results in
distortion and falsification of reality. His anti-romantic intentions militate against absolute
fidelity to fact, and the dramatist often becomes unconvincing and incredible. A fugitive
soldier may demand food when he is hungry, but we hardly believe that he would demand
chocolates. Sex may be an impersonal instinct, but in real life Sergiuses are usually married
to Rainas and not to Loukas. Soldiers may be born fools, but it does not seem credible that
they will not observe a pistol lying in their very eye, even after a thorough search, while an
ignorant maid-servant, Louka, notices it as soon as she enters the room.
The play is anti-romantic and Shaw succeeded fully in exposing the romantic ideas of life,
specially the romantic attitude towards love and war. But this does not mean that there is
no romance in the play. In fact, there is enough romance. The play opens in an atmosphere
of romantic melodrama. There are thrills and sensations, shootings, fugitives and pursuers.
There are news of a heroic knight and his heroic cavalry charge. There is a beautiful,
romantic girl enjoying the beauty of nature and dreaming for her knight gone to the front
and inspired by the thought of her love. There is also the love at first sight between Raina
and Sergius. Such things do happen but in a romantic fairytale. Bluntschli himself, despite
all his realism is a romantic idiot who comes sneaking to have a look at the pretty lady,
considers her to be a schoolgirl of seventeen, while she is twenty-three, and ultimately turns
out to be The Emperor of Switzerland in a manner of a fairy tale. Louka may be a
realist as far as Sergius is concerned, but she is a romantic in relation to Nicola, dreaming of
becoming a rich lady and ignoring his practical advice. Louka is romantic in her ambition to
cut through barriers of birth and rank. Her love-affair with Sergius is the result of her
romantic dreams and she succeeds again in the manner of a fairy tale.
Shaws views on love and war are characterized by strict realism and are clearly brought out
if we compare them with that of Tolstoy. Like Tolstoy he tells that romantic war is only
butchery and romantic love is only lust. Shaw only objects to them in so far as they are
ideal. He objects not so much to war as to the praise of war. He does not so much dislike
love as the love of love. Shaw is quite content to say:
Do not be taken in by it.
Tolstoy seems really to propose that high passion and patriotic valour should be destroyed.
Shaw is more moderate and only asks that they should not be desecrated.
