Arms and the Man

ARMS AND THE MAN

George Bernard Shaw's "Arms and the Man" is a social satire which depicts war and human mind in a sarcastic way. War is an unessential game of men. Love and marriage do also take such a twist when there is internal conflicts of choice. Most of the wars were fought for nothing and love affairs also germinate from simple reasons that could not be explained. Love never takes a straight line, it always twists and coils and difficult to solve its issues.
Certain interesting comments in the play are as follows.
1. Don't ask me for promises until I know what I am promising.
2. Nine soldiers out of ten are born fools.
3. Men never seem to grow up, they all have school boy's ideas.
4. Our romance is shattered, life's a farce.
The world is not such an innocent place as we used to think.
4. Good people will make good laws , but good laws passed by a few do not necessarily make a good society.

Arms and the Man, the earliest of Shaw's pleasant plays ,is both amusing and thought provoking. It makes us laughing and it makes us think, for it has a serious message or messages. The environment of the play is 1885 Bulgaria. The major characters are Bulgarian soldiers, their womenfolk and a Swiss hotel keeper's son turned soldier. The play has two themes, one is war and the other is marriage. These themes are interwoven and wrapped in romantic illusions which led to disastrous wars and also to unhappy marriages. According to Shaw, war is evil and stupid, and marriage desirable and good. Raina Petkoff, one of the leading characters of the play ,at the time the play opens, intends to become the wife of Major Serius Saranoff, who is then away fighting the Serbs. News has come to Raina and her mother that Sergius has ridden bravely at the head of a victorious cavalry charge,and Raina rejoices because she can now believe that her betrothed is just as splendid and noble as he looks! that the world is really a glorious world for women who can see its glory and men who can act its romance. In the opening scene of the play, after adoring Sergius's portrait,Raina goes to bed murmuring , " My hero!My hero!". This is a romantic girl's romantic view of life, but then reality suddenly breaks in upon her. An enemy officer, in headlong retreat with the defeated Serbs, rushes into her room from outside balcony to take refuge. He is desperate through exhaustion and fear ,and Raina sneers at him. Nevertheless, when the pursuers come to search the house, Raina hides the fugitive and denies having seen him. She learns, after the pursuit is over,that he is aSwiss fighting for the Serbs as a professional soldier, and she is again contemptuous when he tells her that instead of ammunition he carries chocolate in his cartridge cases, having found that food is more useful in battle than bullets.
At Raina's request that he should describe the great Bulgarian cavalry charge the man tells her that its leader ,Sergius, rode like an operatictenor.... with flashing eyes and lovely moustache... thinking he had done the cleverest thing ever known, whereas he ought to be court -martialled 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 commited suicide... - or they would have committed suicide, the man goes on to say , only the Serbs had no ammunition left and therefore could not repel the charge. The scene ends with the man falling asleep through uncontrollable weariness,and Raina finds herself moved to pity by the suffering he has endured. She had imagined war as an exciting sort; she has now seen it as a dreadful reality through contact with one of the defeated. In the later scenes of the play, the other aspect of the plot comes uppermost. The war has ended and the soldiers are home again. Serius too has learned something of the realities of war and is so disgusted by them that he has sent his resignation saying"Solidiering.... is the coward's art of attacking mercilessly When you are strong, and keeping out of harm's way when you are weak. Yet Raina continues to treat him as a hero of romance until Captain Bluntschli comes to visit Petkoffs house and is discovered to be the man who took refuge in Raina's room during the retreat. In an amusing scene of the kind that is especially typical of Shaw, Blutschili shows Raina her real character beneath the romantic mask that she has worn since childhood. Notonly has she substituted an imaginary Sergius for the real one , but she had also built up an imaginary self. Bluntschili is not decieved. He says to her," When you strikes that noble attittude,and speak in that thrilling voice, I admire you, but I find it impossible to believe a word you say". After pretend to be indignant, Raina surrenders and asks, " How did you find me out? How strange it is to be talked to in such a way! You know, I have always gone on like that ... I mean the noble attittude and thrilling voice.. I did it when I was a child to my nurse.. She believed in it. I do it before my parents. They believe in it. I do it before Sergius. He believes in it ." But her Swiss visitor does not believe in it.

Blutschili is not deceived ,either by Sergius, not is Sergius blind to his own true nature. When he finds himself flirting with the servant maid, Louka ,immediately after an adoring love scene with Raina,he analyses himself frankly, I am surprised my self , Louka. What would Sergius, the hero of Slivinitza, say if he saw me now? What would Sergius ,the opostle of the higher love,say if he saw me now? What would the half-dozen Sergius who keep popping in and out of this handsome figure of mine say if they caught us here?
When Raina succumbs at last to the man she calls her chocolate cream soldier, Blutshili has cured her of the second of the two deceptions which ruled her life when the play began. She no longer thinks war as a romantic game, nor does she any longer think of marriage as the mating of a beautiful heroine and a handsome hero in a life long romantic dream. Instead of the ornamental and fickle sergius , she takes as her husband the plain Bluntshili, whose common sense and six hotels in Switzerland will give her stability and comfort.
The realities of love and marriage became one of the most frequent themes in Shaw's plays.
The rest of the play is mostly light hearted fun, though amid the fun there are several shrewd hits at two sorts of snobbery: the snobbery of the man servant Nicola who regard his employers with cynical servility, despising them, yet humbling himself before them because that is what they like , and that is how you will make most out of them. : and the snobbery of the Petkoffs who think themselves better then their neighbours because they have a library and an electric bell. As an upholder of social equality, Shaw was opposed to any idea that servants are an inferior class.