Arms and the Man: Theme of Love and War

Timuçin Edman

Arms and the Man Researchgate

Duzce University

Abstract: George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950), the Irish comic playwright, literary critic, and a Fabian socialist thinker occupies a prominent position in the history of modern English thought in general and English drama in specifics. This is mainly due to his unconventional treatment of the conventional topics or ideas in his plays. Shaw wrote sixty-three plays which are all comedies that criticize wittily the social diseases prevalent in his society during his lifetime. Shaw‟s plays are dramas of ideas. He deals with many themes in his plays such as morality, wealth/poverty, society and class, power, heroism, violence, war and love. This research analyzes two themes of love and war in his two well-known plays Arms and the Man (1894) and Major Barbara (1905). In the study, the complex meanings of love and war will be tackled with special focus on the unconventional outlook of the writer about the traditional concepts of love and war. The aim of the study is to confirm the intermingle of love and war in Bernard Shaw‟s Arms and the Man as well as Major Barbara. The approach chosen by the researcher of the study will be cultural materialism, as it is broadly known as new historicism. This approach will focus on the social, political, and cultural events that happened during the period of Shaw‟s lifetime and how those events are reflected and have been dealt with in the mentioned dramatic works under study.

Keywords: Drama of ideas, Love, War. 

Summary of Both the Plays: 

Arms and the Man: 

All of Shaw‟s literary works in British culture are considered as a new movement in the 19th century, because all of them contain ideas about human‟s freedom. Shaw‟s plays are called drama of ideas, because his aim was usually not to tell a story but to convey ideas to people. Arms and the Man examines the faults of the society. Shaw from the first act tries to combine all the humanity problems and show them to the audience/readers. The time with the setting of the play goes back to the brief Serbian and Bulgarian war in 1885. Shaw‟s friend Sidney Webb arrived with the news of the war as the model of the situation. At that time Shaw was at the reading room in British Museum when he selected Serbia and Bulgarian war as the setting for his play Arms and the Man. The main character of the play is a Swiss Professional soldier  named captain Bluntschli, The title of the play is derived from the ancient epic poem Virgil. Shaw chose the first line of the poem Aeneid: “Of arms and the man I sing” (Virgil, 2007). The title of the play is ironic and it is contrary to that of Aeneid, because Aeneid in the epic is proud and glorified the hero, but Shaw in the play used the anti-hero or runaway soldiers or known as a “chocolate-cream soldier” in the play (Shaw, 1946. Act I p. 29). Arms and the Man depicts the historical events was the war between two-neighboring countries. The war happened in Slivnitza near the Bulgarian capital in 1885. Bulgaria and Eastern Rumelia, which was commonly Bulgarian, declared their unification in 1885, against the will of the Great European Powers, particularly Austria. Serbia utilized the misrepresentation of a border to attack Bulgaria. The Serbians had advanced weapons however as in Shaw's form, they had trouble with their gun. They also underestimated the Bulgarians and used mostly young staff. Bernard Shaw demonstrates them fleeing as Bluntschli did. The Russian officers permitted the Bulgarian officers like Sergius and Petkoff to direct the war. They were not as experienced as the Russians, but rather they had strong patriotism and morale. Shaw marks Petkoff‟s opinion that without the involvement of the Great Powers, the Serbs and Bulgarians would not know how to battle. In the past, the Serbs and Bulgarians struggled on the same side against their enemies, but the Serbian fighters were deceived into fighting against former partners. Austria interfered after Slivnitza, forbidding more battle. The Bulgarian victory established the unification question and increased the respect of Bulgaria, since the Serbs had not before known defeat. Bernard Shaw used Bulgaria as a symbol of the backward state desire to connect with the family of the modern European nations. Shaw does, in any case, draw out the political difficulty of such a nation as Bulgaria, battling for its personality among the greater, modernized countries. Petkoffs and Sarnoff, needing to be thought progressed, embrace the way of life of remote nations that do not legitimately instruct the general population. Saranoff wastes his time attempting to be Byronic, and Catherine concentrates on having an electric bell. This same marvel is still seen today when poorer countries imitate what is prominent in wealthier nations. (Stafford, 2013). The time and the plot of the play is attractive and easy to follow. The drama is in three Acts which all are located in Raina‟s house. The first movements are in Raina‟s bedchamber between her and the man, Bluntschli. Their conversation shows their opposite ideals about war. Bluntschli has different thoughts about war between countries; his own ideal is that each country and the army in the battle will fight for their powers. Raina soon knows that her ideal is wrong about war and moved to her fugitive soldier. Because before seeing the fugitive soldier she thought that her fiancée „Sergius‟ was born with courage, especially her father Petkoff, who served his country and connected with the issue of nationalism. The time setting in the play is in good situation for gaining result to the viewer or readers. Shaw‟s Arms and the Man is a comedy about behavior and other Victorian traditions. Arms and the Man is the best example of Victorian literature. The play was presented to the British people in 1894. It is one of the Plays Pleasant Volume with other Shaw's plays, such as You Never Can Tell, Arms and the Man, Candida, The Man of Devils. The most fascinating thing about Arms and the Man are the comic elements; it manages a few political and social issues privately. The class conflict is the top idea of Arms and the Man, however as opposed to making the reader or audience aware of them, he presents interesting things and makes one think about these issues after the laughing. Not like different plays of the time, Arms and the Man did not look to just engage a group of people with considerate cleverness. Instead, Shaw tried to uncover most problems of the day that are begging to be addressed in an attractive configuration in the comic drama. This is a symbol of Shaw's creativity as he mentioned, What is the utilization of script plays, or composing anything, if there is not a will which at long last forms bedlam itself into a race of divine beings (Peters, 1996). Last point, is the play Arms and the Man shows the high standard of living between two idealistic couple in the bright time of the Bulgarian war. Raina acts as a queen, noble-woman, from the high class. However, Sergius appears as a brave, chivalric soldier in the battlefield (Hasim, 2015). 

The Theme of War in Arms and the Man: 

Shaw‟s aim behind writing Arms and the Man is to examine the concept of war, which is connected with human nature in Victorian period (1837-1901). During that period, there were various plays that had the same ideas of Arms and the Man but Shaw‟s philosophy in the play is different from all the other plays. In the play, Shaw presents famous themes of love and war and explains them in a different way. Here, war is presented in a funny way and this seems to be an explosion in the British Theater. In the preface of the Plays Pleasant Shaw states that: “Drama, in England at least, was a figment of the revolutionary imagination”(Shawto 1964). Shaw presents war in a witty way to give the audience an approach for applying it in their daily lives. However, Shaw‟s attempt in the play is not to show the good or the bad sides of war, but his intension is to present how it has affected human‟s nature. For instance, in the preface of the Heartbreak House (1919), Shaw states that war destroys the pretenses of civilization and breaks humans life (Griffith, 2003). Through Arms and the Man, Bernard Shaw as a social writer delivers a number of messages to the viewers to be aware of what is happening around them. This play can be considered as a military play, because Shaw in the preface of Plays Pleasant states that the purpose of his plays is to deal with romantic follies of society. In the play the ideas of the war returns to the brave man or fighter that able to overcome all the danger in the battlefield. However contrary to that, Shaw believes that war damages the society and brings starvation, poverty, prostitution, and homelessness. He also conveys a message in the play to audience to recognize the true reality of the warrior in the war. Shaw attacks war in general and scorns the romantic notion of the warrior in a specific way; as such, he deals with war in an anti-epic style (Mahdi, 2011). Bluntschli is a realistic man and hero soldier in the play, because his entering Raina‟s bedchamber changes all the illusions and traditional notion of war. Through his coming to Raina‟s room, he explains the entire images of war and the warrior in the battlefield. Bluntschli‟s vision about soldiers is not to make the difference between a hero and a coward. He believes that there are two types of soldiers in the battlefield, he says: “The young ones carry pistols and cartridges: the old ones, grub” (Act I, p.26). In this quotation, Bluntschli mentions that the young soldier has ammunition, guns but the old soldier has skill in war and they do not care about death one day. Bluntschli is the best example of the experienced soldier, and describes him as the mouthpiece of the author. Because Bluntschli shows the soldier‟s life in the battlefield, suffering from lack of food, sleep, and filled with fear. Bluntschli uses his ammunition pockets to carry chocolates rather than cartridges for his pistol, and he thinks that it is important to be a professional soldier carrying a box of chocolate to eat instead of bullets for his pistol. Because in the battlefield, it is very hard to find food to eat, and with empty stomach, they cannot fight, for that the best thing for the soldier is to eat chocolate. He explains to Raina:“I‟ve no ammunition. What use are cartridges in battle? I always carry chocolate instead; and I finished the last cake of that hours ago” (Act I, p. 25). Raina‟s father is one of the officers in the Bulgarian army, he joins army so as to get the rank of major. Raina describes her father to the man in her bedroom and says: “I must tell you that my father holds the highest command of any Bulgarian in our army. He is a Major” (Act I, p. 31). Major Petkoff is a major and a business-man in the Bulgarian army; in the war he makes a trade of horses and his talk with Sergius explains this. He says: “I suppose soldiering has to be a trade like any other trade”(Act II, p. 43). Another idea in the play is that Sergius notices that the war for the warrior is the dream of showing himself as a brave soldier in the battlefields. Also Bluntschli describes himself as tradesman solider, whoever comes first, he will contact him. Bernard Shaw as a pacifist writer is against the glorification of war and his aim of writing Arms and the Man is to serve people to know more about war and warrior in the battlefield. Because Shaw depicts two-neighboring countries Serbia-Bulgaria who fight against each other and start to make war without knowing any rules of war. In Bernard Shaw‟s mind, heroism must help humanity by directing people to a peaceful life. He does not agree with the military heroism in war, because people become poor, orphan, and hungry (Mahdi, 2011).  

The Theme of Love in Arms and the Man: 

Arms and the Man is a witty play; describing wrong notions of both two themes. Especially, themes of love towards Raina, appears as a romantic girl right from the opening Act. In the first Act, when she stands on her balcony looking at the sky and admiring the brilliant stars around her country. She is joyful because of the hero Sergius and waiting him to return from battlefield to marry him, she describes Sergius: “Oh, I shall never be unworthy of you any more, my soul‟s hero: never, never, never” (Act I, p.19). On Sergius‟ return to Raina‟s house, they called each other my hero and my queen, because Raina is an attractive Bulgarian woman, full of notions of love. When Raina hears about Sergius‟ bravery in the battlefield she is joyful and happy. She is confused by the news she hears, she describes her fiancé as knight, and hero, and she keeps his photo and kisses him. She imagines that she is fit to marry him. Because at that time bravery is considered as a simple thing that a soldier can get in the battle. Sergius explains his love for her and says: “If you are away five minutes, it will seem five hours” (Act II, p.46). The  characteristic of Raina towards love shows love in a great situations of society (Rao, 2004). Arms and the Man is ironic play that attacks individuals who are proud cowards boasting about war. For that Raina's thoughts towards love and war went to change after the arrival of Capitan Bluntschli. Before coming Bluntschli, Raina believes that soldiering is the duty of killing and fighting in battlefield and they do not have any fear of death. However, Bluntschli explains the situation that happened in war field, he tells that all soldiers have fear of death and there is nothing about cowards in the war, and its bravery to save your life as long as you can. He presents a negative image of soldiers in war: “nine soldiers out of ten are born fools”(Act I, p.22). Bluntschli escapes from the war and enters Raina‟s bedchamber through the window, and helps Raina to have a realistic picture of love and war. At the end of the play, Sergius‟ relation with Raina moves to Louka, because he knows that his relationship is not built on realistic manners, he also thinks that Raina does not accept him as her hero, and now she is not looking at him as her future husband. Petkoff as the master of house thinks that there is a love between Louka and Nicola, but Nicola refuses to have any relationship with Louka. In the play, Shaw explains the realistic notion of love and marriage between Louka and Nicola. So, it is right to say that all of Shaw‟s work is inspired by Ibsen‟s work especially in struggle between reality and love (Singh and Arjun, 2013).