Bernard Shaw's Arms and the Man- Arms and the Man as a problem play

 

Arms and the man as a problem play

Introduction:

                Bernard Shaw was a dramatist with a purpose.  His purpose was to build up a kingdom of heaven on the face of the earth.  He believes that God has     given us a beautiful world that nothing but our folly keeps from being it a paradise.  People entertain airy notion and fantastic emotion regarding all temporal things.  He wants to drive out all these rotten ideas from the mind of men with the help of the west wind.  That is why he took up the current social political problems as the subject-matter of his plays.

Shaw’s Problem plays:

                He discussed the problem of prostitution in “Mrs. Warren’s profession, London’s slum in “Widower’s House”, the profession of doctors in “Doctor’s Dilemma”, war and marriage in “Arms and the man” and love and marriage in “Candida”.  So his plays are problem plays.  In fact his plays are more than problem plays.  They are concerned with innate human quality or with human nature itself.

Conflict of his plays:

                Shaw’s character are always seen sitting round a table and discussing this or that problem.  His plays lack physical conflict.  In Arms and the Man , a battle is being fought vigorously by both the sides.  But we do not see anybody fighting there.  When we dive deep in his plays, we find that his plays do not lack conflict.  In fact, he has replaced physical conflict by mental conflict.  That is why his characters fight a battle of ideas with the help of logic and argument.  They try to defeat their opponent on the plane of mind.  They are not independent of the author.  It is truth that Shaw expresses his ideas through the mouth of his characters.

Arms and the Man: Problem play:-

                Arms and the Man is a critique on Serbo-Bulgarian War of 1885.  In the play, Shaw attempts to satirize the romantic notion about war.  A drama of ideas concerns itself with the problems of life-the maladies of society.  Its often called as problem play.  In the play Shaw intentionally creates Bluntchli as an anti-hero or un heroic hero, who exposes the false romantic ideas of war.  He is radically rational and logical in his actions and views about life.  Instead of going to the battlefield with arms and ammunition, Bluntchli carefully loads his cartridge belt with chocolates.  Bluntchli’s action poses a question on morality of wars.  The love of the country that makes individuals such as Saranoff to kill and main his ‘enemies’ but his love for humanity and the sacrosanct of life makes Bluntchli act otherwise.  Definitely, there will be problem to judge the morality of wars for themselves. 

Unconventional Resolution:

                Shaw deliberately allows the war to end in a peace treaty to show that there could be peaceful alternatives to war and violence.  Like Catherine Petkoff, who is not happy at the peaceful resolution of the war, there are expectations for spectacular celebration of heroic victory after the enemies have been crushed.  Again, this unconventional resolution qualifies the play as a problem play.  Another social and controversial issue raised in the play, which qualifies it a representative of the genre of problem play, is the issue of class.  That’s poor oppressed and the affluent oppressors.

Class struggle:-

                Arms and the Man is a class struggle.  The marriage between Raina and Bluntchli, Louka and Saranoff leaves the debatable social issue of marriage and the right of a woman to marry a man she loves.  Moreover, Louka being desperate for an upper class does not waste any time in agreeing to marry Saranoff.  As a technique in problem plays, Shaw, attempts to impose a relationship and connection between poverty and the moral issue of materialism.

Critique on Materialism:-

                The play is also a critique on materialism which was the product of Industrial Revolution.  Because of his obsessed mental disposition to material wealth caused by poverty, Nicola, acquiescence with Louka her betrothed to marry Bluntchli who has promised to employ him.  Nicola’s action presents the social problem of materialism.  Nicola sacrifices his love for Louka on the altar of material gain.  The morality of the quest for materialism becomes more complex when we discover that Catherine Petkoff only changes her mind and acquiesces to Raina marrying Bluntchli only when she learns now rich he is after his father’s death.  Because of the subtle relationship between class and wealth, Mrs.  Petkoff wants her daughter to mary man from an upper class.

Romanticism of love: debatable:-

                The romanticism of love presented in the play is also debatable.  Both Raina and Sergius Saranoff courtship is not based on true love but on societal status.  Both Paul and Catherine want their daughter to marry Saranoff because of their idealized notion of love.  The love expressed  here is not true love but a façade to meet the moral standard of the aristocratic society.

Conclusion:-

                Thus the plot of  the play there by making it a representative of problem plays.  The plot begins with an exposition, followed by a complication, then a climax and finally a resolution.  As a believer in realism Shaw carefully ends the play with a message that realism will always win over idealism.