Arms and the Man Notes, about a romantic comedy, is written by George Bernard Shaw. This website hosts complete Study Notes, summary, review, analysis and characterisation of Arms and the Man.
We know George Bernard Shaw for his witty dialogues. His style remains fascinating. He breaks the idols of olden times. Where people tend to idealise war mongering and sham bravery. Bernard Shaw’s opinions regarding excessive liking of soldiering is the image of modern Europe. This might have been due to the long wars that Europe went through. We must remember that Europe saw many wars till the twentieth century. The long hundred year war between Britain and France continued from the year 1337 to 1453. Particularly, the World War One and the World War Two killed millions of people. Europe remained the worst affected continent.
European nations stopped idealising wars. They focused more on peace and shifted their main expense to education, medical, development and progress of their nations. Therefore, what Shaw writes in this play is really very important. He wants us to realise that soldiers are humans. They are not super humans. They fight because they are trained to do so. But being humans, they have individual traits i.e. bravery and cowardice. They attack “mercilessly when they are strong an keep out of harms way when they are weak””.
The play “Arms and the Man” is a soft display of how mocking attitude towards the acts of bravery that nations tend to display at their military mights. The hypocritic behaviours of the nations are displayed when their individuals try to appear to be gentle and up to the mark whereas in reality they least bother of what they themselves try to display. So, Shaw makes fun of our trivialities and shows our own abaseness in the heights of our prides. However, he does like purer hearts for they lure beauty in all forms.
Arms and the Man Notes
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