BERNARD SHAW: ARMS and the MAN

                 Bernard Shaw: Arms and the Man

  AUTHOR’S BACKGROUND

            George Bernard Shaw, an Irish playwright, was born on July 26, 1856.  His father, George Carr Shaw, was a low income earner, a drunkard who was incapable of supporting his family – wife and three children.  Bernard’s mother left Dublin for London because of the poverty of her husband, and became a music teacher.  Bernard could not follow his mother then, because he was in school.  It is this family background that pushed him to the search for true independence.

 At fifteen, he worked as a clerk and cashier in a land agent’s office.  After doing four years on this job, he moved to London to join his mother.  His mother gave singing lessons while Lucy, his sister, was a singer who had several notable operas to her credit.  Bernard Shaw was with his mother trying to get something to do for about two years without success. He then decided to settle down to the writing of novels which he thought he could sell to bring some money to the house.  When the novels which he thought he could sell to bring some money to the house.  When the novels failed to sell, he became a journalist with The Star. In addition to journalism, he started writing plays, making use of his musical experience gained from his mother, and his experience as a newspaper columnist.

 Through a lecture by the American economist, Henry George, Shaw became a socialist.  He did not belong to any party or any religion, though born a Christian.  He believed that the capitalist idea is, to get more than you give, but the socialist idea is, to give more that you get, the latter being an economic and gentlemanly idea.  He believed that socialists should not fight against other classes of people.  No fight between employees and their employers or between workers and the idlers.  He wrote more than 50 plays, many of which reveal his attitude to life.

 TEXTUAL BACKGROUND AND SETTING

The play has its geographical, social and economic in Bulgaria, and precisely in Major Petkoff’s house and its premises.  The setting reveal the time as the nineteenth century when religious war on the pretense of purification was common.  People who were considered to be sinners were burnt alive.  The major occupations of the people this time were soldiering, knitting trading and hotel services.  The socio-economic setting reveals a wide gap between the rich and the poor, a feature of the author’s society and in fact all capitalist states of the time.

 The world of Arms and Man is one of contrasts which are also well reflected in Shaw’s characterization of the play.  There is a combination of romance and realism which is seen in the remote Balkan region (Bulgaria) of the setting and the real war situation of the period.  According to Shaw, Many aspects of the play were based on actual facts in spite of the remote geographical location.

PLOT

The play tells a love story against the background of the war between the Bulgarians and the Serbs.  This is not the only contrast in the play, as we have others romantic love in contrast with realistic love; idealism in contrast with frankness and the world of dreams and fantasies being contrasted with the world of realities and facts.

The heroine of the play Miss Raina Petkoff has a romantic love for Major Sergius Saranoff, who is presently fighting on the side of the Bulgarians in the war referred to above.  The Bulgarians have the Russian military officers on their side, while the Serbs are being assisted by officers from the Austrian army.  Raina’s father, Major Paul Petkoff, is also away fighting on the side of Bulgaria.  Raina’s mother, Catherine Petkoff, opens the play by hastily coming in to break the cheering news to her daughter that the Bulgarians have won a victory at a place known as Slivnitza.

 Raina is happy at this news because the hero of the victory, the man who led the victorious charge against the Serbs, is none other person than Sergius, her fiancé.  It is said that Sergius defied his Russian army commanders and blindly swept through the guns of the Serbs and their Austrian officers.  Fortunately for Sergius the Serbs and the Austrians could not fire a single shot at that moment because they had be served with the wrong ammunition.  Were it not for this unfortunate hitch, Sergius and his entire regiment would have been routed.  Raina’s romantic love for Sergius is deepened by this rare show of courage and heroism and she starts to dream of the future when she and her husband would be living together to enjoy the glory of this feat.

 Not too long after, Raina’s romantic dream is interrupted by sounds of gunshots from a distance, but which gets closer by the minute, when suddenly a fleeing Swiss soldier fighting on the side of the Serbs climbs up the water pipe and escapes through an open window into Raina’s bedchamber!  The strange visitor introduces himself as Captain Bluntschli from Switzerland, a mercenary solider fighting purely for money on the side of the Serbs against Bulgaria.  He threatens to shoot if any alarm is raised by Raina.  However, as the drama unfolds, her attitude to him changes from fear to contempt and pity.  She sees him as timid and hungry, the very opposite of Sergius, her courageous and adorable lover.  She offers him protection, none the less, against the search party as a mark of nobility and hospitality.  But he soon courts her anger when he reveals what actually took place on the battlefield, describing Sergius as an officer who should be court-martialled for risking the lives of a whole regiment.  Bluntschli says of Sergius:

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 that’s all.

  Raina considers this a most uncharitable thing to say about her future dream lover.  But the captain is being realistic since bravery consists in fighting to live so that one can live to fight future battles.  However, there is an ironic twist to the whole encounter here, as Raina begins to develop some soft feelings for this ordinary soldier who carries snacks (chocolate) in his cartridge box instead of bullets.

 Raina’s illusion is thus shattered by Bluntschli’s realistic attitude and she now sees life more clearly. After the war, Sergius and Major Petkoff return home.  Sergius now sees the idealist in Raina, and being unable to tolerate this idealism; he falls in love with Louka, the housemaid, and eventually gives her his word for marriage.  Bluntschli makes a dramatic come-back bringing back Major Petkoff’s old coat loaned to him to disguise in by Raina and her mother during his first visit.  Already disillusioned in Sergius, Raina turn to her’ chocolate cream soldier’, the man who told her the frank, bitter truth about their life, for love.  The play ends with the two of them getting ready for marriage.  The idealist has eventually agreed to marry the realist.

THEMES

In this play, we can easily identify not less than six themes:  Heroism, Love, Marriage,   status, Money and War.

HEROISM

Two contrasting views of heroism are presented in the play.  The first is represented by Sergius who appears very great and showy on the battlefield.  His quest for heroism makes him to take very daring and senseless risks.  The attitudes that go with this are pride and in fact arrogance.  The second kind of heroism is the one represented by Bluntschli who is no less, brave but is quite tempered with realism and commonsense. Bluntschli only takes reasonable risks in the battle.  He fights only when necessary, since as a professional soldier.

                          I fight only when I have to, and am very glad to get out of it when

                          I have to.

The idealist sees cowardice in this kind of heroism; the realist sees it as a practical and reasonable approach to survival.

LOVE

Two kinds of love are also represented in the play.  There is romantic love which is idealistic.  The romantic hero here represents absolute nobleness, courage and integrity, while the romantic heroine represents absolute beauty, purity and grace.  The idealist wants perfection, so to say.  The romantic love between Sergius and Raina can illustrate this.

 Realistic love, on the other hand, is more natural, and does not expect perfection in human nature.  The realist is never disappointed when the reality dawns on him, unlike the idealist who is easily prone to disillusionment.  Sergius  and Raina represent the ideal love affair in the play.  Louka and Bluntschli are the realists who carry the day at the end of the story.

 Marriage

The play presents a class society where ideal marriage is contracted within a particular social class.  Hence Raina should marry Sergius, and Louka should marry Nicola since they are both domestic servants.  Ironically, things work out differently; Sergius comes down the social ladder to marry Louka, while Raina, after being disillusioned, decides to marry her ‘chocolate cream soldier’ ever before she gets to know of Bluntschli’s inherited fortune.  This fact of Bluntschli eventually wins Catherine and Petkoff to his side.  The decision of Sergius to marry Louka, Raina’s maid, must be seen as a mark of courage on the part of the aristocratic Sergius.  Nicola’s assessment of Louka is quite apposite:

           

                                    She had a soul above her station.

Showing that it is most unexpected for two people from dissimilar social classes to come together in marriage thus.

            The only couples in the play who can be said to be rightly married are Catherine and Paul Petkoff, whose life together is presented as that of relative comfort and social appropriateness.  It is quite ironical that Raina, who is seen at the beginning of the play dreaming of a class marriage, ends up marrying her ‘chocolate cream soldier, regardless of his social class. This also shows the irony of life because not all you wish for come to pass as you had proposed.

 STATUS

Position and material success are highly regarded in the society of the play.  This reflects a kind of inequality that pervaded social life at the time Shaw wrote the play.   Raina informs Bluntschli that theirs is the only library in Bulgaria, thus reflecting her mother’s belief that material possessions are important in establishing social status.  In Act III we see that the library amounts to only two or three shelves, but it is still referred to as a library.  This means that even if the Petkoffs do not read, they aspire to do so in order to give an impression of culture and refinement.

The rich people in the society see the poor as subhuman, and treat them as such.  Nicola is subjected absolutely to this kind of position.  He has been mentally conditioned to the position of a servant.  Louka highly intelligent does not allow herself to be subjected to this ridiculous position.  She keeps on reminding the wealthy characters that she is created by the same God who created them, and that she has blood flowing in her veins as they have in theirs.

      Catherine’s view of social status is certainly based on material and bourgeois values – a typical middle- class town dweller’s view.  She considers the size and quality of Sergius’s household establishment as unequalled, saying because of this, Bluntschli cannot compete as a suitor for Raina’s hand Bluntschli replies that his is the highest rank in Switzerland, that of free citizen, Shaw is indirectly saying that human beings are equal in rank; it is the qualities of the individual that earn him respect rather that artificial and short-lived material possession.

MONEY

Bernard Shaw’s message as regards money, especially the unbridled acquisitive tendency, is that it demeans the spirit of man.  Nicola’s attitude to money is an illustration.  He waves 30 levas under Louka’s nose to assure her that he has enough money to buy her affection.  Louka scorns this offer of money as insulting since genuine affection is never prompted by money.

WAR

This theme is related to that of heroism.  Shaw is saying that war is capable of generating idealistic feelings as experienced by Raina and as played out by Sergius.  In such a situation, discretion is a necessary precaution to avoid disaster.  As far as Shaw is concerned, war is destructive, therefore peace should be sought at all times.

By

Eguriase S. M. Okaka