Arms and the Man (New Mermaids)

Arms and the Man has proved to be one of Bernard Shaw's most popular plays, challenging notions of romance, bravery, cowardice, patriotism, and loyalty. This is a fresh, up-to-date, and accessibly written critical edition for literature and drama students. An authoritative edition, it is edited by leading Shaw scholar J.P Wearing under the guidance of the advisor to the Shaw Estate, Len Conolly.

Shaw develops an ironic contrast between two central characters. The play begins with accounts of the glorious exploits of Major Sergius Saranoff, a handsome young Bulgarian officer, in a daring cavalry raid, which turned the war in favor of the Bulgarians over the Serbs. In contrast, Captain Bluntschil, a professional soldier from Switzerland, acts like a coward. He climbs up to a balcony to escape capture, he threatens a woman with a gun, and he carries chocolates rather than cartridges because he claims the sweets are more useful on the battlefield.

In the eyes of Raina Petkoff, the young romantic idealist who has bought into the stories of battlefield heroism, Saranoff is her ideal hero. However, as the play proceeds, we learn more about this raid and that despite its success, it was a suicidal gesture that should have failed. Eventually Saranoff is going to end up dead if he continues to engage in such ridiculous heroics. Meanwhile, we realize that Bluntshcil has no misconceptions about the stupidity of war and that his actions have kept him alive.

"Arms and the Man" is an early play by Shaw, first performed in 1894, the same year he wrote "Mrs. Warren's Profession." The ending is rather tradition for comedies of the time, with all the confusion between the lovers finally getting cleared up and everybody paired up to live happily ever after. The choice of a young woman as the main character, who ultimately rejects her romantic ideals to live in the real world, is perhaps significant because serving in the army and going to war is not going to happen. Consequently, her views are not going to be colored by questions of courage in terms of going to war herself. I also find it interesting that this play understands the horrors of war given that it was the horrors of World War I that generally killed the romantic notion of war in Britain.


Like the chocolate cream soldier - tasty and satisfying   February 8, 2001
Bonnie MacBird (Los Angeles, CA USA)
9 out of 10 found this review helpful

A starving, exhausted soldier running for his life bursts into a young woman's room, finds outrage, criticism, solace, chocolate creams, and unexpected love -and that's just the opening scene. This clever, witty, subtle, and surprising treat from the author of Pygmalion still holds up well more than 100 years after its writing. Shaw fashions the subjects of false ideals, heroism, romanticism, and the fake glories of war into a well-constructed farce which sustains through the very last line. Can't wait to see a new production of the play, and a great read meanwhile....


Too much social 'comment', not enough comedy.   July 5, 2000
darragh o'donoghue (dublin, ireland)
8 out of 12 found this review helpful

Shaw, who more than any of his contemporaries dealt provocatively with the crucial issues of his day, has not worn well. In a 1971 encyclopaedia I had as a child, the entry on GBS called him the greatest dramatist since Shakespeare. That's better than Moliere, Sheridan, Strindberg, Ibsen, Wilde, Jarry, Chekhov, Brecht, Ionesco, Beckett! Such a laughable proposition is untenable today, and we can now see Shaw for what he is - a superficially amusing farceur, who squandered this modest gift on deadly social comment, deadly because he reduced issues that effected real people to theorems, and reduced those people to mere mouthpieces. There is no subtext in Shaw - everything is expounded tediously and teeth-grindingly on the surface. ARMS AND THE MAN is one of his better efforts, and, after an uncertain start, settles into some nice old-style farce - hidden identities, buffoonish heroes, scheming servants, crusty old majors; when, though, the puppets start lecturing us on war, idealism, class, gender etc., one's heart sinks, not because what Shaw says isn't true, but because a letter to the Times would have been a better place to say it. While Wilde's plays grow with the years, seeming richer, more meaningful, brutally satiric, bursting with complex and fluid themes, Shaw's work, in their steadfast refusal of mystery and ambiguity, seem chilly and remote.


Arms and the Man   February 18, 2000
3 out of 4 found this review helpful

Another of Shaw's great masterpieces. To fully understand this play, you should have a basic understanding of Fabian Socialism and the conditions under which Shaw was writing. A very important play of his era and one which still speaks volumes about society today.