G. B.

Shaws Arms and the Man as a Realistic Play and Humorous Play
George Bernard Shaw is the greatest British dramatist, second only to Shakespeare. Shaw has been recognized for his genius and is now considered one of the most important British playwrights of modern drama. He was the playwright whose most profound gift was his ability to make his audiences think by provoking them to laughter. Bernard Shaw is the author of numerous timeless plays, Arms and the Man is one of them. Arms and the Man helped Shaw to establish his reputation as a great dramatist, and to be recognized as a great wit all over the world. !lice B. "ort admitted that Shaw#s $first success came when, on September %&, %'(), Arms and the Man, a strictly realistic comedy was presented by *ichard +ansfield at the Herald S,uare -heater, .ew /ork$ (Fort, 1935). -he play was first published in %'(' as part of a volume titled Plays Pleasant. -ill the present day, Arms and the man is seen as one of Shaw#s most popular plays. -he play takes place in %''0 during the war between the Serbs and the Bulgarians. -he play opens with *aina, a young bulgarian woman, in her room. Her mother, 1atherine, enters to announce that *aina#s fianc2, +a3or Sergius Saranoff, was the hero of a cavalry charge. *aina is re3oicing as Sergius has proven to be as heroic as they e4pected. But they soon hear sounds of fighting and shooting in the street. -hey secure the house, and 1atherine leaves *aina to sleep. Suddenly, a Swiss voluntary soldier in the Serbian army, 1aptain Bluntschli, who is fleeing from the outside fighting, surprises *aina by entering her bedroom for shelter. He begs her to hide him, so that he is not killed. *aina decides to hide him and she denies having seen anyone when she is ,uestioned by a *ussian officer. !fter the *ussian officer#s departure, *aina accuses Bluntschli of being coward, especially when Bluntschli informs her that he is a soldier who prefers a supply of chocolates to bullets when he goes to the front. *aina informs him of the bravery of her

fianc2, Sergius, who led the Bulgarian victory. He gives an account to *aina about the Bulgarian victory, which according to him, was 3ust a stroke of luck as someone had forgotten to supply the Serbian army with ammunition, and also informs her of the foolish nature of Sergius charge in the battle. He shocks her even more when she reveals that he is afraid and unwilling to die. !fterwards, when the battle dies down, *aina and her mother sneak Bluntschli out of the house, disguised in an old overcoat belongs to +a3or 5etkoff. !1-66 takes place four months later, after the war is over. *aina#s father and fianc2 have returned after the war. -he two men talk about a young Swiss officer who had impressed them with his practical approach to the e4change of soldiers. -he men also laugh about the tale of the officers escape and how a young girl had given him shelter in her bedroom. +eanwhile, Sergius is attracted to 7ouka, *aina#s servant girl, and when alone, flirts with her. 8ne4pectedly, 1aptain Bluntschli shows up to return the overcoat that he had borrowed for his escape, and *aina and her mother become afraid especially when +a3or 5etkoff and Sergius reveal that they have met Bluntschli. -hen, *aina#s father invites him to stay for lunch. !fterwards, in !1- 666, *aina is alone with Bluntschli, and she realizes that he loves her. She tells him that she had left a portrait of herself in the pocket of the coat, inscribed $-o my chocolate9cream soldier$, but Bluntschli says that he didn#t find it and that it must still be in the coat pocket. *aina is worried that her father will find the photo. 7ouka then tells Sergius that Bluntschli is the man whom *aina protected, and that *aina is really in love with him. So, Sergius challenges him to a duel, but *aina interrupts and e4presses her real feelings for Bluntschli. !fter Bluntschli reveals the whole story to +a3or 5etkoff, Sergius proposes marriage to 7ouka. -hus, 7ouka succeeds in securing Sergius for herself and +a3or 5etkoff and his wife give consent to Bluntschli to marry *aina. Being the first of Shaw:s pleasant plays, Arms and the Man was labeled as an anti9romantic comedy. 6t is also considered a

serious comedy because it deals with serious issue; war and its effects 9 in a funny manner. G. <. 1hesterton admits that in Arms and the Man, $there was a savage sincerity,$ with a $strong satire in the idea$ =pp. %%' ; >?@. 6n Arms and the Man $Shaw is highly realistic and marks fun of the romantic illusions about war and love. But he does not merely criticize them. He shows what they really are by showing their true aspects with the help of their realismA. He puts the case for both the sides but he does so very deftly the realistic one, which show clearly how silly the idealistic notions are and how true the realistic ones are$ =Bwivedi, p.CD@. 6n addition, as previously mentioned, "ort described the play as $a strictly realistic comedy$, in which Shaw deals with real issues from his society in a humourous way. 6n Arms and the man Shaw satirizes the romantic ideals of life, more specifically the romantic view of war, soldiering and romantic love. 7ove and war are two concerns which are often regarded as societal ideals, and Arms and the Man is a pleasant and humorous attack on both. Shaw uses humor as a method to provoke his audience to think without getting upset because of his satire on war and the upper9classes. -he following will discuss the characteristics of Arms and the Man as a realist play as well as a humorous one. !s a socialist, Shaw was interested in the issues of his society. He aimed to discuss these issues through his drama. Hence, as a dramatist, Shaw preferred drama which is critical towards society, tackles social problems and is Erealistic: in so far as it discovers a kind of reality behind the deceitful surface and mask of social conventions and norms. 6n his famous letter to his 6rish colleague +atthew +c.ulty, Shaw e4presses his opinion about the true art, and his tend to realism. He wrote that true drama $is the art of making the audience believe that real things are happening to real people$ =Fest, p.%0D@. He found in realism the suitable movement to achieve his goal in e4pressing real life. $6n %'(), after the first production of !rms and the +an, he published #! Bramatic *ealist to His 1ritics,# claiming to put on stage #what is in real life# and to be

so unoriginal that he takes all his #dramatic material either from real life at the first hand, or from authentic documents$ =Bukore, p.%(C@. Arms and the Man is a good e4ample of the realist trend Shaw adopted in his plays. 5hilip George Hill admitted that $Shaw personally supported a realistic theatre in the manner of 6bsen, and !rms and the +an is essentially realistic in the broader sense of the term$ =Hill, p.%)@. "irst of all, Shaw takes his issues from his society. 6nspired by the backdrop of the %''0 Serbo9Bulgarian war, Shaw presents a realistic depiction of war. Shaw says, $6 have stuck to the routine of war, as described by real warriors, and avoided such farcical GrealH incidents as Sir Filliam Gordon defending his battery by throwing stones, or General 5orter#s story of the two generals who, though brave and capable men, always got sick under fire$=!dams, p.&D@. +oreover, Shaw realized that people of his time were convinced that soldiers go in a war obsessed with sense of patriotism and heroism. So, he aimed at e4pressing the dangers of war. !nother sub3ect taken from Shaw#s society is the struggle between the upper9 class and the low9class. !t the time George Bernard Shaw wrote Arms and the Man there were a number of class struggles taking place in Britain. Buring that period, workers in Britain were often paid low wages and offered little security. 6n response there were several workers movements that rose up across the nation and this drew the attention of artists and writers such as Shaw. !s a realist, Shaw reflects his society with its class distinctions and in3usticesI there are two contrasting particular classes represented in Arms and the Man. -his issues are dealt with through a number of themesJ the false romantic idea about war, class discrimination, and hypocracy. -he first theme to be dealt with in Arms and te Man is the false romantic idea about war. !t Shaw:s time, Far was reputed by people to be as a splendid venture and the one who is able to 3oin the army of his country, fights bravely and gets back victorious will be warmly welcomed, promoted and becomes of high nobility. Shaw wants people to change this ideaI he wants to make the heralds of war see its horrors. -hus, he e4presses his ideas on the mouth of

1aptain Bluntschli when the latter confesses to *aina that he, like most of the soldiers, does not want to die in the war. Kn the other hand, 1atherine and *aina 5etkoff see Sergius to be a true hero. But in fact, Sergius is not a good fighter in the battles. 1aptain Bluntschli shocks *ains when he tells her the news about Sergius # foolish charge in the war. By the end of the play, *aina understands that a man like Bluntschli is more of a real hero than Sergius. -he second theme of the play is class discrimination. -he theme is taken from life with its numerous problems, and presented in a realistic manner. Shaw used to e4press his thoughts and concerns in a play with $social problems as its primary reason for being$=Lggenberger, p. )&(@. !s a socialist, many of Shaw#s plays dealt with social problems. !s a socialist, Shaw upheld social e,uality of all people and he hated discrimination based on gender or social class. -hese beliefs are evident in the relationships portrayed in Arms and the Man. Shaw allows a maid to succeed in her ambitions to better herself by marrying Sergius, an officer and a gentleman. -his match also means that Sergius abandons most of his empty heroic attitude and has developed the courage to free himself from the e4pectations of his class. He breaks his engagement to *iana and instead marries the housemaid, 7ouka, the woman he loves. Bluntschli is also able to convince the 5etkoffs that through an inheritance from his father he has more than sufficient means to take care of *iana and the 5etkoffs are glad to settle for a son9in9law less socially prominent than Sergius. Hypocrisy is the third theme Shaw discusses in his play. H. F. .evinson, writing in %(>( for the New Leader, sums up Shaw#s drama by noting that Shaw#s $plays have laid bare the falsities and hypocrisies and boastful pretensions of our time. 6 can think of no modern prophet who has swept away so much accepted rubbish and cleared the air of so much cant.$ !lso, the German playwright and critic Bertolt Brecht notes that $probably all of his characters, in all of their traits, are the result of Shaw#s delight in upsetting our habitual pre3udices$=Brecht, pp. %') ; '&@. Must like in real life, in

Arms and the Man hypocrisy found in society, is caused by the attitudes of the characters which show in what kind of society they live. Being married to an aristocrat, 1atherine 5etkoff tries to be # a Niennese lady#, but she cannot hide her true identity as a member of a lower class. She $wears a fashionable tea gown on all occasions$. She does not realize that by wearing tea9gowns all the time people are probably laughing at her because she does not know the occasion appropriate for the dress. *aina#s attitude is another e4ample of hypocrisy. She is afraid to admit her love for Bluntschli because she thinks that he is not suitable for her according to society:s value. Sergius is better for her because he is handsome and rich and he comes from a respected family ; 3ust like her. -he Ehigher love: that she mentions in the play is the definition of this kind of love, a love the purpose of which is only to fulfill the family honor in the eyes of society. 7ikewise, Sergius#s attitude is hypocritical. !s a child of a respectable family, Sergius#s marriage of *aina will be Eperfect: in the view of society. Sergius pretends love to *aina, although Sergius is in love with 7ouka, *aina:s maid. But he does not want to admit his feelings. !s for style, it is evident that !rms and the +an is realist in style. !rms and the +an is realistic in tone. -he setting is familiarI it is a real depiction of the war9 torn Bulgaria in %''0 during the war between the Serbs and the Bulgarians. -he plot is simple built upon a chain of life9like incidents. !s a realist play, the dialogue of !rms and the +an is void of poetic beauty and charm. 6t resembles that of real life, with believable conversations. Shaw used to creat life9like conversations which the audience can speak in their real lives. -he realist dialogue is one of the powers of Shaw#s dramatic pieces. !s for charcacterization, realist plays move away from the focus on a central heroic figure. !s any realistic play, Shaw#s Arms and the Man contains no heroic charactersI it focuses on a number of charactes which resemble the real people. -here is no protagonist in Arms and the ManI the characters simply e4ist. !s a realist, Shaw wants to give faithful picture of real human e4istence. So, he creates

life9like people, who are a mi4ture of good and evil. He portrays characters so realistically without e4aggerating their flaws. -hey are believable human beings. *aina 5etkoff is a high9spirited idealistic young girl. +uch like Lnglish audiences of the time, *aina is sucked into the idea of the war hero and finds it difficult to think that war is anything e4cept not glamorous. But as the play proceeds, she changes her opinionsI she re3ects her romantic ideas to live in the real world. 1aptain Bluntschli is a Swiss professional soldier who has been appointed 1aptain in the Serbian army. Fhen his line was broking and his forces scattered by a Bulgarian cavalry charge, he took refuge in *aina:s room. He is a realist who believes in adapting to a situation in order to survive. !s a professional soldier, he knows that he is only a tool and he has no illusions about war and the practical actions one must take to win battles and stay alive. His most famous feature is that he keeps chocolates in his cartridge belt rather than bullets. 1atherine 5etkoff is *aina#s mother. She is a good looking, smart and capable fourty years old woman who tries to pass herself off as a lady. 7ike her daughter, she is fascinated with the idea of war. +a3or 5etkoff, *aina:s father, is a rich, e4citable, insignificant, unpolished man about fifty. His main interests is his income and his importance in local society. His rank in the Bulgarian army is more of his family:s wealth than his ability as a military strategist or leader. +a3or Sergius Saranoff is *aina#s fianc2. He is handsome man filled with idealistic morals. He, like *aina#s father, has gained his high military rank in the Bulgarian army through his charm and family position rather than through common sense of training. !lthough he is engaged with *aina, he flirts with 7ouka, *aina#s maid. 7ouka is an ambitious maid whose only hope is to rise above her state in society. She is attracted to Sergius, and finds him the suitable man to give her the new life ahe dreams of. .icola is an unambitious servant. He believes that class division is an indisputable system, and he advises 7ouka to accept her place. But

he changes his mind at the end of the play. He wants to establish his own business. !long with being a realist play, Bernard Shaw#s Arms and the Man is a delightful comedy. 7ike all of Shaw#s dramatic works, Arms and the Man offers social criticism tempered by fine comedy. Arms and the Man is a comedy because it gives the audience a familiar happy resolutionI at the end of the play the main characters overcome the obstacles to their happiness. -he play ends as captain Bluntschli and *iana 5etkoff are looking forward to getting married and 7auka and Sergius are going to marry. Bwivedi said that the play $is an anti9romantic comedy and in it Shaw opposes and criticizes the romantic ideas about love and war$ =p.>&@. 6ndeed, Shaw:s Arms and the Man is decidedly comical in its satire of the ills of war and the romanticism of love. -he central purpose of the play is Shaw:s attack on the false ideals of war and the soldier:s profession, which were prevalent in the nineteenth century. British society, especially the upper classes, tended to see war as a noble pursuit and the men who engaged in it as courageous heroes, eager to die for their country. Shaw presents his thoughts through the notions of his characters. -he false ideas of war are embodied in the notions of *aina and 1atherine 5etkoff. *aina, as her mother, believes that her fianc2, +a3or Sergius, is a war hero. But, in fact, he is ,uite the opposite. Fhen 1aptain Bluntschli enters *aina#s room for shelter, he reveals to her the right picture of war, e4pressing that the Bulgarian victory was by chance. He also tells her about the foolish charge of her unprofessional fianc2 in the battle. "urthurmore, Bluntschli shocks *aina when he reveals that he is afraid and unwilling to die. He defines himself as a soldier who prefer chocalates to bullets in the battles. Bluntschli confesses that he carries no ammunition in the battle, but he carries chocolate insteadJ RAINA: 7oad it by all means. THE ANJ 6#ve no ammunition. Fhat use are cartridges in battleO 6

always carry chocolate insteadI and 6 finished the last cake of that hours ago. RAINA =outraged in her most cherished ideals of manhood@. 1hocolateP Bo you stuff your pockets with sweets99like a schoolboy99even in the fieldO THE AN =grinning@J /es. 6sn#t it contemptibleO =Hungrily@ 6 wish 6 had some now. -hus, *aina#s romantic notions are faced by the realistic picture of war drawn by Bluntschli. 1atherine is the other carrier of false conventions about war. She e4presses the notions of the British people in the era of Shaw. Shaw uses her to be his voice. 6n ignorance of the horrors of war, 1atherine is disappointed when the war ends in a peace treaty, because she wanted a glorious victory over a soundly defeated enemy. 6n a conversation between 1atherine and her husband, she announces her anger because of the peace with the SerbsJ !ATHERINE =springing erect, with flashing eyes@J 5aul, have you let the !ustrians force you to make peaceO PET"#$$ =submissively@J +y dear, they didn#t consult me. Fhat could 6 doO =She sits down and turns away from him.@ But of course we saw to it that the treaty was an honorable one. 6t declares peace99 !ATHERINE =outraged@J 5eaceP PET"#$$: =appeasing her@ 99 but not friendly relations, remember that. -hey wanted to put that inI but 6 insisted on its being struck out. Fhat more could 6 doO !ATHERINE: /ou could have anne4ed Serbia and made 5rince !le4ander Lmperor of the Balkans. -hat#s what 6 would have done.

PET"#$$: 6 don#t doubt it in the least, my dear. But 6 should have had to subdue the whole !ustrian Lmpire firstI and that would have kept me too long away from you. 6 missed you greatly. Shaw also criticizes the romanticism of love. *aina and Sergius have engaged because of the suitability of their social statusI and because Sergius is the type of hero that *aina has been taught to admire. -heir love is false, based only on outward appearances. -hroughut the course of the play, *aina falls in love with 1aptain Bluntschli, and Sergius is attracted to 7auka, the housemaid. 6n all of his dramatic works, Shaw resorts to use humour in order to deal with serious issues. !ccording to Brecht, $GShaw#sH terror is an unusual one, and he employs an unusual weapon Q that of humor$ =Brecht, pp. %') ; '&@. 6n general, Shaw $used humor and satire because it allows people to tolerate facts without feeling hurt$ =Bwivedi, p. 0@. 6n Arms and the Man, Shaw uses humor as a vehicle of thought thus tending to obscure his subtle satire on war and the genteel classes and his e4ploration of the romantic9realist spectrum in human disposition =Bavis, p. >&)@. !ccordingly, !rms and the Man is a pleasant and humourous attack on war and love. -he tone is humourous and the dialogue is amusing. 6n the play, there is there is a cynical sense of humour that prevails the play. -he ridicule of human folly and the vanities of the characters, the contrasts of the characters, the triangular relatioships among the characters, and the une4pected turns of events are Shaw#s tools to evoke humour throughout the course of the play. Bertolt Brecht announced that Shaw creats characters with sense of humour, he believed that Shaw insisted $on the prerogative of every man to act decently, logically, and with a sense of humor$ =Brecht, pp. %') ; '&@. "or e4ample, when *aina is trying to show Bluntschli that she is not an ignorant country girl, but a civilized personJ Raina: /ou shewed great ignorance in thinking that it was necessary to climb up the balcony...-here is a flight of

stairs inside to get up and down by. The an: StairsP How grandP /ou live in great lu4ury indeed, dear young lady.

!nother e4ample is the characters of +a3or 5etkoff and 1atherine. -hey are typical secondary characters, with funny occasional opinions and repetitive comments, such as those of the electric bell or the so famous uni,ue library in all Bulgaria. -heir roles adds more humour to the play, especially in those dull scenes where humour is e4pected to be used in order to break down the monologues. 6n conclusion, !rms and the +an is one of Bernard Shaw#s masterpieces. 6t is a realistic play as well as a humourous one. 6t is evident that throughout his dramatic career, Shaw wrote a kind of drama that deal with real human beings with real emotions and who e4perience real situations. He uses believable life9like characters who are caught in situations which resemble that of real life. -he langauge is realistic. 6n addition, in Arms and the Man, Shaw demonstrates his genius for satire by e4posing the opposition of life and criticizing the contradictions in human character. He e4presses his thoughts against the romanticism of war and love. His cleverity of using humour in the play is un,uestionable.

%or&s !ited
!dams, Llsie Bonita. $!rt and *eality$ in Bernard Shaw and the !esthetes. 1olumbusJ Khio State 8niversity 5ress, %(&%. Brecht, Bertolt. $Kvation for Shaw,$ translated by Gerhard H. F. Ruther, in Modern Drama, Nol. >, .o. >, September %(0(, pp. %') ; '&. 1hesterton, G. <. George Bernard Shaw. .ew /orkJ Mohn 7ane, %(?(. Bavis, -racy 1. George Bernard haw and the o!"al"st #heatre$ FestportJ 5raeger, %((). Bukore, Bernard "rank. Shaw#s -heaterJ -he "lorida Bernard Shaw Series. "loridaJ 8niversity 5ress of "lorida, >???. Bwivedi !. +. S <im, Lt !l. George Bernard haw%s Arms & #he Man. .ew BelhiJ !nmol 5ublications 5N-. 7-B., >??>. Lggenberger, ed. Lncyclopedia of Forld Brama. Nol. 696N. .ew /orkJ +cGraw9Hill, 6nc., %(&>. "ort, !lice Buchanan and <ates, Herbert S., eds. M"n'te ("story o) the Drama. .ew /orkJ Grosset S Bunlap, %(D0. Hill, 5hilip George. Kur Bramatic HeritageJ *eactions to *ealism, vol. 0, 1ranburyJ "airleigh Bickinson 8niversity 5ress, %((%. .evinson, H. F., $George Bernard Shaw,$ in New Leader, !ugust >D, %(>(. Fest, L. M., ed. haw on #heatre, .ew /orkJ Hill and Fang, %(0(.