The play 'Arms and the Man' begins in the bedroom of Raina Petkoff in a Bulgarian town in 1885.it was the time of Serbo-Bulgarian War. As the play opens, Catherine Petkoff and her daughter, Raina, have just heard that the Bulgarians have scored a tremendous victory in a cavalry charge led by Raina's fiancé, Major Sergius Saranoff, who is in the same regiment as Raina's father, Major Paul Petkoff. Raina is so impressed with the noble deeds of her fiancé that she fears that she might never be able to live up to his nobility..-----------

2. Key facts about the play:-
 Full Title: Arms and the Man: An anti-romantic comedy in three acts. The title comes from the
opening words of Virgil’s Aeneid, in Latin: Arma virumque cano meaning "Of arms and the man I
sing".
 Written during the early 1890s.
 Shaw was at that time in Ireland and England.
 Published in: 1898 as part of Shaw's Plays Pleasant volume; It had included Candida, You
Never Can Tell, and The Man of Destiny.
 First Performed in: 21 April 1894 at the Avenue Theatre.
 Literary Period: Transitional: End of Romanticism, Beginning of Modernism; rise of socialism,
Marxism, and worsening class divisions.
 Genre: Comedy
 Setting: Bulgaria
 Background: Serbo-Bulgarian War in 1885 where the Bulgarians won in a historic Battle of
Slivnitza.
 Point of View: A humorous play that shows the futility of war and deals comedically with the
hypocrisies of human nature.

3. About the playwright:-
 George Bernard Shaw was an iconoclast.
 He was an Irish born in Dublin in July 26, 1856.
 Similar to the epithet ‘Shakespearean plays’, we use ‘Shavian Plays’ for his plays.
 Shakespeare wrote 37 plays but Bernard Shaw wrote altogether 62 plays.
 Shaw was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1925.
 He won the academy award in 1938 for writing the screenplay of his famous
play Pygmalion for the Big Screen.
 Till date he is the only person to win both a Nobel and an Oscar.
 Shaw was one of the most well-read persons of his time though he had no formal
institutional degrees. He said ‘School was to me a penal servitude’.
 George Bernard Shaw died in 1950 at the ripe old age of 94.

4. Plot of the play in brief:-
 A fleeing member of the Serbian army desperately climbs through Raina Petkoff’s bedroom window to
escape capture, but he turns out to be a Swiss mercenary officer by the name of Captain Bluntschli. Raina
scolds him for being cowardly and informs him of the bravery of her fiancé, Sergius, a cavalry officer who led
the Bulgarian victory. Bluntschli informs her of the foolish nature of Sergius’ charge in the battle and then
explains that chocolates are more valuable in a war than bullets, a statement that outrages Raina. He
shocks her even more when he reveals that he is afraid and unwilling to die. However, when soldiers come
seeking out the run-away, Raina hides the fugitive, and only her maid, Louka, is aware of her actions. Act II
takes place four months later, when Raina’s father and fiancé have returned after the war. The two men talk
about a young Swiss officer who had impressed them with his practical approach to the exchange of
soldiers. The men also laugh about the tale of the officer’s escape and how a young girl had given him
shelter in her bedroom, little suspecting that it happened in Major Petkoff’s own house. Meanwhile in secret,
Sergius has been flirting with Louka. Unexpectedly, Captain Bluntschli shows up to return an overcoat that
Raina had lent him for his escape, and she panics when her father invites him to stay for lunch. In Act III,
while Bluntschli is helping the men plan for the transport of troops, Raina is worried that her father will find
the photo she had secretly left in the coat pocket for her “Chocolate Cream Soldier”. When Sergius
discovers the bond between Raina and Bluntschli he challenges him to a duel, but Raina interrupts and
expresses her real feelings for Bluntschli. Louka succeeds in securing Sergius for herself and Major Petkoff
and his wife give consent to Bluntschli to marry Raina.

5. Brief summary of the Play:-
 The play is set in Bulgaria and set during the brief Bulgarian-Serbian war in the
1880s. It opens with the young romantic Raina Petkoff and her mother Catherine
talking excitedly about a successful cavalry charge led by the handsome and heroic
Sergius, to whom Raina is betrothed. They are thrilled at his success. Their defiant
young servant Louka comes in and tells them that there will be fighting in the streets
soon, and that they should lock all of their windows.
 Raina’s shutters do not lock, and shortly after the gunshots start that night, she
hears a man climb onto her balcony and into her room. He is a Swiss professional
soldier fighting for Servia. Though he fights for the enemy and is not in the least
heroic (he fears for his life, threatens to cry, and carries chocolates instead of
ammo) Raina is touched by his plight. He angers her when he tells her that the man
who led the cavalry charge against them only succeeded because he got extremely
lucky—the Servians were not equipped with the right ammo. Raina indignantly says
that that commander is her betrothed, and the man apologizes, holding back
laughter. Raina nevertheless agrees to keep the man safe, saying that her family is
one of the most powerful and wealthy in Bulgaria, and that his safety will be ensured
as their guest. She goes to get her mother and when they return he has fallen asleep
on Raina’s bed.

6. Summary(cont.)
 In the next act the war has ended, and Major Petkoff (Raina’s father) arrives home, and
Sergius and Raina are reunited. They speak lovingly to one another about how perfect
their romance is. But when Raina goes inside, Sergius holds Louka in his arms, clearly
lusting after her. Louka believes he is taking advantage of her because she is a servant,
and tells him she does not believe she and he are any different simply because he is rich
and she is poor. They part just as Raina returns. Then, to make things more
complicated, the man from Raina’s balcony, announcing himself as Captain Bluntschli,
arrives, to return a coat he was loaned the morning after he rested at the house.
Catherine tries to keep him from being seen, but Major Petkoff recognizes him, and
invites him inside to help with some of the last remaining military orders.
 In the final act, in the library, it comes out that Louka, though she had been assumed to
be engaged to the head servant Nicola, is in love with Sergius, and he is in love with her.
Raina eventually admits she has fallen for Bluntschli, who is at first hesitant, believing
her to be much younger than she is. When he finds out her real age (23 rather than the
17 he had thought she was), he declares his affection for her. The play ends happily,
with two new couples.
 Copied from www.Litcharts.com

7. Characters:-
 Captain Bluntschli: A professional soldier from Switzerland who is serving in the
Serbian army. He is thirty-four years old, and he is totally realistic about the
stupidity of war.
 Raina Petkoff :The romantic idealist of twenty-three who views war in terms of noble
and heroic deeds.
 Sergius Saranoff: The extremely handsome young Bulgarian officer who leads an
attack against the Serbs which was an overwhelming success.
 Major Petkoff: The inept, fifty-year-old father of Raina; he is wealthy by Bulgarian
standards, but he is also unread, uncouth, and incompetent.
 Catherine Petkoff: Raina's mother; she looks like and acts like a peasant, but she
wears fashionable dressing gowns and tea gowns all the time in an effort to appear
to be a Viennese lady.
 Louka: The Petkoffs' female servant; she is young and physically attractive, and she
uses her appearance for ambitious preferment.
 Nicola: A realistic, middle-aged servant who is very practical. [www.cliffnotes.con]

8. Themes:-
Shaw was a propagandist playwright. Following the tradition of Ibsen’s ‘Drama of Ideas’,
Shaw propagated his iconoclastic Ideas in his plays. For this reason we find a number of
themes highlighting his ‘Time and Age’ in the witty play ‘Arms and the Man’. Broadly
speaking ,we find the following themes in ‘Arms and the Man’---
1. Ignorance vs. Knowledge or, Realism vs.Romanticism
2. The Realities of War or, Hollowness of heroism in War.
3. The Realities of Love or, There is no ‘Higher Love’; all love are ‘Vegetable Love’.
4. Incompetent Authority
5. Class consciousness and pretentions attached to it.
6.Mockary of the idea of Bravery and Heroism.
7.Personal honesty

9. IGNORANCE VS. KNOWLEDGE OR, REALISM VS.ROMANTICISM
Bernard Shaw’s plays lack traditional actions. His action derives from conceptual
‘conflicts’ or Clashes between Ideas. Arms and the Man is concerned foremost with the
clash between knowledge and ignorance, or, otherwise stated, between realism and
romanticism. Raina and her fiancé Sergius are steeped in the romanticism of operettas
and paperback novels. Bluntschli uses his superior knowledge to disabuse Raina of her
military delusions, while the experience of war itself strips Sergius of the grand ideals he
held. The couple’s idealized vision of warfare deflates in the face of additional information.
In the realm of love, the couple’s pretensions are defeated by the thoroughgoing
pragmatism of their respective new matches:Bluntschli and Louka. Both the Swiss
Captain and Bulgarian maid confront their lovers about the gap between their words and
their true selves, exposing their hypocrisy. When faced with reality, both Raina and
Sergius are able to abandon their romantic delusions and embrace their honest desires.
So,the main theme of the play is ‘Realism vs.Romanticism.
www.gradesaver.com

10. The Realities of War or, Hollowness of heroism in War.
 Next, is the theme of ‘Futility of Romantic notion about War’. Initially Catherine and
Raina imagine war, they picture brave and dashing officers fighting honorable battles.
The reality of war falls far from this romanticized vision. In the play’s opening scene
Bulgarian soldiers hunt and kill fleeing Serbians in the streets of a quiet mountain
town.The moment Captain Bluntschli, a mercenery soldier of the defeated Serbian
army, appears, he becomes an eloquent messenger for the horrors of war. He
describes conditions of starvation and exhaustion at the front lines. Moreover, having
been under fire for three days, he seems to be suffering from some form of Post-
Traumatic Stress Disorder, jumping nervously when Raina squeals. What first appears
to be the most glorious moment in the war, Sergius’ cavalry charge, is revealed to be
an absurd case of dumb luck. Later in the play Captain Bluntschli helps Major
Petkoffand Sergius coordinate the return routes of surviving troops so as to prevent
starvation. Since the play begins in the aftermath of the Serbo-Bulgarian War, the
reader doesn’t experience any titillating battles, only a grinding post-war reality where
hunger and death loom in the background. This picture successfully deflates any
romantic notions the characters or audience may hold.
[www.gradesaver.com]

11. No ‘Higher Love’, only ‘Vegetable Love’ or ‘Calf-Love’.
 Raina and Sergius are as delusional about love as they are about war, seeming to
have derived their understanding of romance primarily from Byronic poetry. They
celebrate each other with formal and pretentious declarations of “higher love”, yet
clearly feel uncomfortable in one another’s presence. The couple, with their good
looks, noble blood and idealistic outlook, seem to be a perfect match, but in George
Bernard Shaw’s world love does not function as it does in fairy tales. Instead Raina
falls for the practical and competent Swiss mercenary that crawls through her bedroom
window and Sergius for the pragmatic and clever household maid. Love does not
adhere to conventions regarding class or nationality. Moreover, love is not some
abstract expression of poetic purity. Love in Arms and the Man is ultimately directed at
those who understand the characters best and who ground them in reality. Shaw’s
message in this regard is: No ‘Higher Love’, only ‘Vegetable Love’ or ‘Calf-Love’.
[www.gradesaver.com]

12. Incompetent Authority
 Throughout the play competence and power do not align with
established authority. Louka, the insolent but charming maid, repeatedly
flouts social rules. By violating traditional ideas of authority and power,
she is able to win marriage to a handsome and wealthy war hero. Her
manipulation of Sergius, who is privileged both in terms of wealth and
gender, demonstrates that control does not necessarily derive from
social authority. Likewise, Catherine manipulates her husband Major
Petkoff, withholding information and shepherding him about. Major
Petkoff, as the oldest wealthy male, should be the most powerful
character according to contemporary social hierarchy. Yet Petkoff
proves to be a buffoon; he is, in fact, the character least able to control
outcomes, as he rarely understands what is unfolding before him.
Sergius is incompetent as a Major so his promotion was denied. The
incompetency of the Serbian war-management caused their defeat and
dishonour.

13. Class consciousness and pretentions attached to it.
 Class has a large and continuous presence in Arms and the Man. The
Petkoffs’ upper-class pretensions are portrayed as ridiculous and
consistently played for laughs. The family’s pride in their so-called
Library (a sitting room with a single bookshelf) becomes a running joke
throughout the play. Shaw praises the family’s more local and humble
roots: admiring the oriental decorations in Raina’s bedroom and
describing Catherine’s earthy local beauty. In contrast he condemns and
mocks their attempts to conform to romantic notions of what nobility
means.Raina’s outdated Viennese fashions and Catherine’s tea gowns
are treated as ridiculous.
 Louka’s struggle demonstrates many of the effects of class in Bulgarian
society. She feels restricted by her station, which condemns her to a life
where reading books is considered presumptuous. Using her wit, Louka
manages to escape these boundaries, achieving equality with the
wealthy Sergius

14. Mockary of the idea of Bravery and Heroism.
 At the beginning of the play Sergius, like both Catherine and Raina, imagines bravery as
the will to undertake glorious and theatrical actions. This belief leads the young Bulgarian
Major to lead a regiment of cavalry against a line of machine guns. Despite his dumb luck,
the action identifies him as an incompetent and somewhat ludicrous figure, halting his
advancement in the ranks. When he returns at the end of the war Louka challenges his
romantic notions of bravery. Sergius admits that “carnage is cheap”: anyone can have the
will to inflict violence.
 Louka submits that the subtle bravery required to live outside social rules and constraints is
more worthy of praise. At the play’s end Sergius demonstrates this particular kind of
bravery when he embraces Louka in front of the others and agrees to marry her.
 Like Sergius, Captain Bluntschli also undermines traditional understandings of bravery. He
tells Raina that there are two types of soldiers - young and old - not brave and cowardly.
The young are too inexperienced to know true fear, and the old have reached their age by
championing survivalism over heroics. The Swiss mercenary is willing to face danger when
necessary but he does not act in ways that court death and is always relieved to avoid
combat.[www.gradesaver.com]

15. Personal Honesty
 It is through personal honesty that all the play’s major conflicts are resolved.
 Raina abandons her indignant posturing and admits that Sergius exasperates her, allowing
her to pair up with Bluntschli.
 Likewise, Sergius overcomes his overly romantic understanding of the meaning of love and
bravery, opening himself to an engagement with Louka.
 It is only when the couple confronts and accepts their true desires and feelings that they
find happiness with their ideal partners.
 Pretending to share noble love makes both Raina and Sergius miserable; Raina fantasizes
about shocking her fiancé’s propriety and Sergius cannot wait for Raina’s departure so he
can complain about their tiring relationship to a pretty young maid.
 In the end, even Bluntschli embraces his inner romantic self, asking for the hand of the girl
he is smitten with.
 Each character gives in to his honest desires and is rewarded with an optimal outcome.
 The last sentence of the play was Sergius’s exclamation about Bluntcili:‘What a Man’! And
this Justifies the theme of ‘personal honesty’ in the play.

16. STUDY QUESTION-1
1.How are women portrayed in the play?
The play’s portrayal of women is complex. Both Raina and Catherine are
often presented as frivolous or foolish, particularly when exhibiting class
pretentions. Yet Shaw makes Sergius and Major Petkoff just as - if not
more - ridiculous. Multiple times throughout the play, women are shown
to be powerful: Raina and Louka using their wit to control the men
around them; Catherine shepherding the bumbling Petkoff through life;
Louka successfully pushing Sergius into marrying her.
Regardless of any social limits they may face, women in Arms and the
Man wield informal power and shape the events of the play.

17. STUDY QUESTION-2
2 .What older work does the title Arms and the Man reference? Why is
this allusion made?
The play’s title is a reference to Virgil’s epic poem the Aeneid, which
documents the heroic travels and adventures of Aeneas. Shaw borrows
much of the structure of the first act from the Aeneid in order to better
satirize the glorification of both warriors and war. By reflecting the
conventions of Virgil’s poetry and distorting them, Shaw brings attention
to the unrealistic ideals of the original. Bluntschli serves as a diminished
version of Aeneas, highlighting the unbelievable aspects of the warrior’s
story, effectively satirizing heroic retellings of wars.

18. STUDY QUESTION-3
3 .Discuss the different conceptions of bravery presented by the play.
Arms and the Man presents two competing conceptions of bravery: the
romantic and the realistic.
The first belongs to Sergius at the beginning of the play and focuses on
theatrical and dramatic actions taken during battle; this understanding
pushes Sergius to lead a suicidal charge against a row of machine guns.
The second is first articulated by Louka and focuses on personal
integrity in the face of social pressure. Sergius demonstrates this second
form of bravery when he agrees to marry Louka, a servant well below his
social station with whom he has fallen in love.

19. STUDY QUESTION-4
4 .Explain the symbolic value of Bluntschli’s chocolate rations and
Raina’s chocolate creams.
Chocolate serves as a dual symbol in Arms and the Man. When in the
form of Bluntschli’s gritty rations it represents pragmatism; chocolate
with low dairy content was often used by soldiers in wartime, who prized
its durability and caloric density. When in the form of Raina’s chocolate
creams, it represents romanticism; chocolate creams were an expensive,
fragile treat enjoyed primarily by the upper classes. Raina
misunderstands the meaning of Bluntschli’s decision to carry
chocolates; such a choice was not childish, but eminently reasonable
given chocolate’s value as a ration and the fact that the Captain was
issued the wrong cartridges.

20. STUDY QUESTION-5
5 .How does George Bernard Shaw use farcical elements to further the
play’s theme?
The play’s primary theme revolves around the confrontation between
knowledge and ignorance. Shaw uses farcical elements to highlight and
dramatize this confrontation. Most farcical moments in the play revolve
around a character’s lack of information. The Major does not know his
coat has been returned; Nicola does not know why he is being
reprimanded for bringing in the captain's bags; the Major does not know
who or what the chocolate cream soldier is. Ultimately all these farcical
scenarios are resolved when knowledge is brought to bear.

21. STUDY QUESTION-6
6 .According to the play, what characteristics make a person a good
soldier?
Captain Bluntschli represents Shaw’s ideal soldier. The Swiss mercenary
is dispassionate, competent and, above all, pragmatic. Bluntschli
harbours no romantic ideals; he views war as business to be efficiently
dispatched. If Bluntschli demonstrates what a soldier should be, Sergius
and Major Petkoff demonstrate what they shouldn’t be. Sergius is filled
with Byronic ideas about bravery and honor; worse, he acts on those
ideas without regard for effectiveness or safety. Major Petkoff is the
picture of incompetence, unable to coordinate troop movements or even
run his own household.

22. STUDY QUESTION-7
7 .How does George Bernard Shaw view romanticism?
Romanticism serves as the play’s theoretical villain.
It is romantic ideals that lead Sergius to naively charge a line of machine
guns and that trap him and Raina in an exhausting relationship.
In Arms and the Man romanticism is always a reflection of ignorance;
once a character gains knowledge, they abandon their poetic ideas.
Sergius returns from the war a cynic and both he and Raina abandon
their engagement after being made aware of their hypocrisy, pairing up
with more practical partners.
It can be assumed that Shaw had a low opinion of romanticism.

23. STUDY QUESTION-8
8 .Discuss the different views of war presented by the play.
Sergius, Raina and Catherine all, at least initially, view war as a kind of stage
where an honorable man can, through bravery and purity, achieve glory.
Bluntschli presents a much less dramatic and more practical understanding.
For the Swiss captain, being a soldier is just a profession and war is just a
business.
In his view, the ultimate goal of war is not to win glory or prestige, but to
survive.
Eventually both Sergius and Raina adopt Bluntschili’s views: the actual
experience of war destroys Sergius’ ideals and the captain educates Raina.

24. STUDY QUESTION-9
9 .Why do Sergius and Raina find “higher love” tiring?
Inspired by their romantic ideals, the couple pretends to share an all-
consuming and pure “higher love” .
Unfortunately this love belongs in the theoretical domain of poetry, not
in reality, and it proves an impossible standard to follow.
Raina and Sergius are forced to constantly perform in order to conform
to their ideas of what love should be like.
This continuous piece of domestic theater leaves them both exhausted
and ultimately unhappy.
Falling short of their romantic ideals grinds them down and ultimately
leads to their canceled engagement. [www.gradesaver.com]

25. STUDY QUESTION-10
10 .What function does Major Petkoff play in Arms and the Man?
Major Petkoff functions as a figure of fun in the play; he is the fool in a play
filled with foolishness.
He is a Major who cannot coordinate simple troop movements.
He is equally incompetent on the domestic front, bumbling from scene to scene
confused and manipulated.
Many of the play’s jokes are partially or entirely at his expense.
He is astounded to find his old coat; he pompously chastises Nicola for
smashing a non-existent pastry; he discovers that the portrait of Raina has
vanished under his nose. He serves as a form of comic relief, leaving speeches
about love, war and idealism to the more serious characters.

26. The End
 Although subtitled ‘An Anti-Romantic Play’, Arms and thr Man ends with two happy
marriages. and a repair in the relationship between Major Petkoff and Catherine.
 Sergius is happily married with Louka and Raina got real love in marrying her
‘Chocolate cream soldier Blunticili’.
 Even Nicola, the epitome of ‘servitude’ got consolation with a promise to fulfill his
dream of becoming an independent ‘shop-owner’.
 As such when we leave the theatre or close the book, we smile remembering the
medieval concept a Romance : “----And they lived happily thereafter’.
FINIS

27. Performance Pictures of ‘Arms and the Man’ from public domain web academic resources
at- https://www.concordplayers.org/00productions/ArmsAndMan/Pictures.html

28. The fugitive Serbian Captain is threatening Raina in her bed-room.[Opening scene from Arms and the Man]

29. Performance Pictures from ‘Arms and the Man’
Captain Bluntschli, (John McAuliffe) a mercenary soldier in the
Serb army, escapes from the Bulgarians by climbing to the
balcony and then slipping into the bedroom of the Bulgarian lady
Raina (Carol Anderson).
Six panels in the Act I bedroom set are replaced with panels for the
courtyard in Act II panels were also changed for the Act III drawing room.
Exceptionally beautiful design with authentic Bulgarian details by Ron
Placzek

30. Performance Pictures from ‘Arms and the Man’
Major (Donald MacMaster) and Mrs.Catherine
Petkoff (Betsy Connolly) at breakfast on the
morning of his return from war with Serbia
Raina and Sergius, her hero, until she finds out
he thinks he conquered a regiment, which, in
fact, had no ammunition.

31. Performance Pictures from ‘Arms and the Man’
Bluntschli returns with Petkoff's coat, loaned to
him by the Petkoff ladies as a disguise.
Catherine must convince him to leave before her
husband finds out.
The servant Nicola (Bill Fallon), once betrothed to the
flirtatious maid Louka (Jodi Lauer), finds he's been
cut out by Sergius, the 'Hero", supposedly engaged
to Raina.

32. John McAuliffe as Captain Bluntschli, the
pragmatic "soldier for hire."
Raina has dubbed Captain Bluntschli the "Chocolate
Cream Soldier" because he carries chocolates for
survival instead of ammunition.

33. The sets of lovers are at last sorted out.

34. The curtain call to the tune of “Light Cavalry Overture”.

35. Presenter:-
Indranil Sarkar
Associate Professor
Department of English
Sapatgram College, Sapatgram, Assam, India
Contact e-mail: indranil49@ hotmail.com
Cell phone: 9859945270