Published: 11:10 AM, 21 September 2026
George Bernard Shaw's Arms and The Man Mirrors His Anti-Establishment Mindscape
Jannat Jahan Chowdhury
4Arms and the Man is a very famous play by George Bernard Shaw. This play presents George Bernard Shaw's realistic approach to love, war and interpersonal relationships. The major themes of the play include love, war, class variation, wrong perceptions about life among people, reality versus romanticism etc.
Arms and the Man is an antiestablishment drama because in this play George Bernard Shaw declines the established concepts of love, war, bravery and romance. He showed mistaken ideas about these things in the thoughts of the main characters of the play who afterwards come to understand their own errors. Antiestablishment stands for opposing ideas and beliefs which have been existing in human society for a long time.
A young woman named Raina takes great pride in the Bulgarian army's recent victory over the Serbians. She unexpectedly takes in a Serbian soldier who fled the battle with pieces of chocolate in his pockets in place of ammunition.
Though she initially despises the Serbian soldier for being a coward, she ends up falling in love with him and gives him a picture of her to take with him. When he leaves, she gives him a coat and a picture of her to take with him.
Four months later, the man, Captain Bluntschli, returns the coat as an excuse to see Raina again. Sergius, the Bulgarian commander who won the battle at the beginning of the play, doesn't recognize Bluntschli
Sergius grows jealous of his connection with Raina. Sergius and Bluntschli agree to a duel, but Raina comes in and tells them that she isn't in love with Sergius anymore. Bluntschli proposes to her, and she accepts.
The play takes place during the 1885 Serbo-Bulgarian War. Its heroine, Raina Petkoff, is a young Bulgarian woman engaged to Sergius Saranoff, one of the heroes of that war, whom she idolizes. On the night after the Battle of Slivnitza, a Swiss mercenary soldier in the Serbian army, Captain Bluntschli, climbs in through her bedroom balcony window and threatens to shoot Raina if she gives the alarm. When Russian and Bulgarian troops burst in to search the house for him, Raina hides him so that he won't be killed. He asks her to remember that "nine soldiers out of ten are born fools." In a conversation after the soldiers have left, Bluntschli's pragmatic and cynical attitude towards war and soldiering shocks the idealistic Raina, especially after he admits that he uses his ammunition pouches to carry chocolates rather than cartridges for his pistol. When the search dies down, Raina and her mother Catherine sneak Bluntschli out of the house, disguised in one of Raina's father's old coats.
The war ends, and the Bulgarians and Serbians sign a peace treaty. Raina's father (Major Paul Petkoff) and Sergius both return home. Raina begins to find Sergius both foolhardy and tiresome, but she hides it. Sergius also finds Raina's romantic ideals tiresome, and flirts with Raina's insolent servant girl Louka (a soubrette role), who is engaged to Nicola, the Petkoffs' manservant. Bluntschli unexpectedly returns so that he can give back the old coat, but also so that he can see Raina. Raina and Catherine are shocked, especially when Major Petkoff and Sergius reveal that they have met Bluntschli before and invite him to stay for lunch (and to help them figure out how to send the troops home).
Left alone with Bluntschli, Raina realizes that he sees through her romantic posturing, but that he respects her as a woman, as Sergius does not. She reveals that she left a photograph of herself in the pocket of the coat, inscribed "To my chocolate-cream soldier", but Bluntschli says that he didn't find it and that it must still be in the coat pocket. Bluntschli gets a telegram informing him of his father's death: he must now take over the family business, several luxury hotels in Switzerland.
Louka tells Sergius that Raina protected Bluntschli when he burst into her room and that Raina is really in love with him. Sergius challenges Bluntschli to a duel, but Bluntschli avoids fighting and Sergius and Raina break off their engagement, with some relief on both sides. Major Petkoff discovers the photograph in the pocket of his old coat; Raina and Bluntschli try to remove it before he finds it again, but Petkoff is determined to learn the truth and claims that the "chocolate-cream soldier" is Sergius. After Bluntschli reveals the whole story to Major Petkoff,
Sergius proposes marriage to Louka (to Major Petkoff and Catherine's horror); Nicola quietly and gallantly lets Sergius have her, and Bluntschli, recognising Nicola's dedication and ability, offers him a job as hotel manager.
While Raina is now unattached, Bluntschli protests that-being 34 and believing she is 17-he is too old for her. On learning that she is actually 23, he immediately proposes marriage and proves his wealth and position by listing his inheritance from the telegram. Raina, realizing the hollowness of her romantic ideals, protests that she would prefer her poor "chocolate-cream soldier" to this wealthy businessman. Bluntschli says that he is still the same person, and the play ends with Raina proclaiming her love for him and Bluntschli, with Swiss precision, both clearing up the major's troop movement problems and informing everyone that he will return to be married to Raina exactly two weeks from that day.
Chapter 2: Love and War in Arms and the Man
George Bernard Shaw has contradicted with people's conventional approach to love and war. Love and war are two most vital aspects in Arms and the Man. George Bernard Shaw portrayed in this play the point that the realities that come with love and war are much different from people's presumptions about these two things. Most of the men and women hold the opinion that love is full of romantic sentiments and sweetness and lovers cannot live without each other. Besides, the popular concept of war is all about heroism exhibited by soldiers on the battlefield. But George Bernard Shaw puts forward in Arms and the Man the fact that love may not be all the time as good as romantic idealism while war in all cases may not be just a tale of heroes. Thus a contrast between the idealistic views and the real perspectives of love and war is strongly presented in Arms and the Man.
According to Ramji Lal's book A Guide to Arms and the Man, "When 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. Once Captain Bluntschli, a career soldier, 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 (74)". 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 Petkoff and 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.
A Guide to Arms and the Man further says, "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 (122)". 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.
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.
Chapter 3: Class Discrimination in Arms and the Man
Class conflict or variations between upper and underprivileged categories of people in society is a very important theme in Arms and the Man. The men and women George Bernard Shaw characterized in this play do not belong to the same social heights. So, there are sharp distinctions between their behaviour with each other and their thoughts on different matters which arise from class discrepancies.
The tension of class rivalry is present throughout the play. Shaw treats it playfully, though it is a serious topic for him as a socialist dedicated to doing away with class injustice.
Cliffs Notes about this play says, "The Bulgarian society is pictured as a primitive example of the feudal class structure that Europe was slowly leaving behind. England, for instance, was dealing at the turn of the century when Shaw was writing, with melting class distinctions. The working classes had gained the vote and the right to education. Improvement of slums, improvement of factory conditions, and greater representation of the lower classes in government signaled the democratic reform going on in advanced countries. In addition, it was a time of the rising power of the middle class, with the entrepreneurial spirit reigning as the force of the future. Bluntschli represents the middle-class business spirit of Europe; the Petkoffs are the aristocratic great landowners of the past; Nicola and Louka represent the old peasantry, bound to the land and landowners."
In the Bulgaria Shaw portrays, the higher classes hold the lower classes in subjugation through power, fear, and custom. Nicola warns Louka that the Petkoffs could destroy her if she defies them: "you don't know the power such high people have over the like of you and me when we try to rise out of our poverty against them" (Act II, p. 22). Nicola is cunning, but he accepts being the scapegoat of the family because they pay him off. He has dreams of rising out of his position as Louka does. He will buy a shop in Sofia to be independent, but even then "I shall always be dependent on the good will of the family" (Act II, p. 22). She accuses him of "selling his manhood for 30 levas" (Act III, p. 55) and swears that "You'll never put the soul of a servant into me" (Act II, p. 23).
Louka's ambition is higher than Nicola's: she wants to marry into the aristocracy. She plays on Sergius's sense of rebellious individualism to get him to defy social convention. She shows him that underneath his noble rhetoric, they are both human and made of the same "clay" (Act II, p. 35). Nicola gives Louka lessons on how to change classes through her thinking and actions. He teaches her to stop wearing false hair and make-up, to trim her nails and keep her hands clean. He tells her a lady must act as if she will get her own way. He lies to Sergius and says that Louka has been reading in the library, trying to get education above her station.
Sergius himself points out that class discrimination spills over into military life. Both the upper and lower classes fight the enemy with equal courage. The poor soldiers, however, fear their own upper class officers who can keep them in their place: "they put up with insults and blows" (Act III, p. 58).
The Petkoffs are initially contemptuous of Bluntschli's middle-class or bourgeois background. He is no gentleman. Sergius calls him a "commercial traveler in uniform" (Act II, p. 30). Raina accuses him of having a "low shopkeeping mind" (Act III, p. 53). They change their minds when he turns out to be a problem solver (getting the troops home), and rich (inherits hotels). Petkoff says he must be the Emperor of Switzerland, but Bluntschli points out that "my rank is the highest known in Switzerland: I am a free citizen" (Act III, p. 72). If Louka is the rebellion of the lower classes demanding equal treatment, Bluntschli is the force of democracy. He congratulates Louka on her engagement with "the best wishes of a good Republican" (Act III, p. 69).
Chapter 4: Complications with Love in Arms and the Man
Arms and the Man by George Bernard Shaw is widely known as a play where love has been illustrated as a much complicated subject. Love is one of the most common themes people find while reading literature. In general terms love means a close relationship between two persons from opposite genders who feel attracted to each other and who promise to each other to stay together forever. But lovers sometimes suffer from misperceptions about love. Thus things become complicated for people when their love stories do not match their desires or imaginations. We find a similar sketch of love in Arms and the Man.
At the beginning of the play, we meet Raina who is a young girl dreaming about love and being with the man of her dreams, Sergius. In fact, she has a large framed picture of him on her desk, and he is the topic of conversation with her mother, Catherine. They talk about him like he's a God and praise him for being a "war hero." Raina appears to be madly in love with him, but is she in love with him or is she in love with being in love? She is betrothed to him, and it seems like her mother strongly encourages this romance. When we are young, many people dream of love and who they will marry. We see this with Raina in the play because she embodies typical youth and she is in love with the idea of love. The audience begins to see that Raina's love may not run as deep as we think when a soldier breaks into her room in the middle of the night. As I watched the play, I could immediately sense the attraction between the two characters and there was casual flirting. Would a young girl who is madly in love typically give a stranger the time of day? She also covers for him and does not reveal that he is hiding in her room when she is questioned. Raina's motives seem unclear, and I think it's because she had feelings for the soldier, Bluntschli.
S. Sen's book A Critical Analysis of Arms and the Man states, "In act two the audience finally meets Sergius, and it appears that Raina's family is more in love with him than she is. He is praised by her parents, and Raina still appears to be in love with him when they finally see each other. They share a deep embrace, and on the surface, they seem truly in love, but it all seems like a performance. Instead of them actually being in love, it almost appears like they are just going through the motions because they are betrothed to each other (53)". Their interactions seem more like what's socially acceptable and not what they actually feel. This suspicion is later on confirmed when Sergius and Louka, the maid talk. It is revealed that the true romantic connection is between them and they could be in love. However, this romance is not socially acceptable since they are a part of two different classes, so they don't act upon their feelings in public.
All of these loose ends are tied up in the third act when the characters forget about social norms and come to terms with their true feelings. Louka and Sergius are exposed, and there is even a proposal. This comes to a shock because of the illusion of love that Raina and Sergius had. Love became a passion instead of a social chore. It is also revealed that Bluntschli and Raina are also in love.
Overall, I think this is a strong play that people will continue to relate to because it deals a lot of love and social class. We all have our private personas and public personas. People should be free to love who they choose because that's part of what makes life beautiful. If people make compromises because of social norms, then nobody will be happy.
Chapter 5: Arms and the Man as an Anti-Romantic Play
Arms and the Man is widely regarded as an anti-romantic play because in this drama George Bernard Shaw rejects the popular romantic views about love and illustrates love in realistic light. This play stresses on the point that love is not all about emotions and romance. Rather the imaginary vision of love cannot survive when reality hits people hard.
The main characters of the play are found entertaining the dreamy perception of love which is very popular with young people but they come to realize their faults as the plot of the play goes on. Thus George Bernard Shaw portrayed that love and romanticism may not go hand in hand all the time. Moreover, George Bernard Shaw's rejection of romantic love gets him on equal terms with modernism as this play was written during 20th century.
Tragicomedies are plays which seem to be moving towards a painful end but some fortunate events in course of the story of the play turn everything upside down, removes the tragic probabilities, enhances the comic elements and thus the play is finished in a happy way. These things can be found in George Bernard Shaw's Arms and the Man too.
Sometimes tragicomedies look like problem plays. A problem play is a type of drama which deals with certain arguable things that happen in society. Problem plays aim to challenge the wrong ideas that people have in their minds about interpersonal as well as social issues. Problem plays are also very close to the features of tragicomedy or dark comedies. There are lots of arguments about love and social standings of people in almost all countries. We find George Bernard Shaw's reflections on the lack of equity and social fairness while reading Arms and the Man. Debates over love, social categories, equal or unequal rights are problematic issues. There is enough space in Arms and the Man for such debates. That is why Arms and the Man may be called a problem play as well.
A Critical Analysis of Arms and the Man by S. Sen says, "The play begins in the fall of 1885 during the Serbian-Bulgarian War. Raina, a Bulgarian woman from a wealthy family, learns from her mother, Catherine, that the Bulgarian cavalry have won a battle against the Serbs. Catherine adds that Sergius, Raina's fiancé, was at the head of the charge, and was as heroic in life as he appears in the picture Raina keeps in her bedroom. Louka, their servant, enters and warns Catherine and Raina that escaped Serbs fleeing the battlefield might be in the area, seeking refuge in the houses of Bulgarian families. Raina is not worried, and chooses to keep her window unlocked. In the night, a man enters the room through the unlocked window and says he will kill Raina if she makes a noise. The man is Swiss and an escaped soldier, fighting as a mercenary for the Serbians (86)".
Raina is shocked to see that the man is tired and hungry, that he does not glorify battle, and that he is merely happy to have escaped the carnage alive. Raina helps him hide behind a curtain just as Catherine, Louka, and a Bulgarian officer enter to search the room for any Serbs who might be hiding in the area. Raina convinces them that no one is in her room, and they leave. Raina gives the man chocolate creams, which she keeps in a box in her room, and is shocked to hear that the man has no ammunition for his pistol, as he normally only keeps candies in his pockets. The man argues that Sergius's cavalry charge against the Serbs was foolish, and succeeded only by sheer luck. The Serbs had machine guns but were given the wrong ammunition by accident, and therefore could not mow down Sergius and his men. Raina agrees to help the man escape later that night, though she rebukes him for making fun of her fiancé Sergius. The man sleeps as Raina enlists Catherine's help, and when Raina and Catherine return, they allow the man to rest since he has not slept for days.
The second act begins in the garden of the same house, though it is now spring of 1886. Louka is engaged to the house's head male servant, Nicola. Louka tells Nicola that he will never be more than a servant, and that she has higher aspirations. Louka tells him she knows many secrets about the Petkoff family, and Nicola says that he does, too, but would never blackmail his masters. Major Petkoff, the head of the family, returns from the war. He reports to Catherine that Sergius will never receive the military promotion Sergius craves, because Sergius has no command of military strategy. Sergius enters and is greeted warmly by the family, and especially by Raina, who still considers him a hero. Sergius says he has abandoned his commission in the army out of anger that he will never move up in the ranks. Sergius and Petkoff tell a story they heard about this Swiss soldier being hidden by two Bulgarian women during the soldier's retreat. Catherine and Raina realize the story is about them, but do not say anything.
Spark Notes on Arms and the Man says, "Sergius speaks with Louka in private, and begins flirting with her. Louka reveals to Sergius that Raina might not remain faithful to Sergius, and Sergius is taken aback. They exit. A man named Bluntschli enters the family garden and Louka brings him to Catherine. Catherine realizes that he is the man that hid in Raina's room, the same man that she and Raina helped escape. Catherine worries that Sergius and Petkoff, who are conferring over military plans in the library, might encounter the soldier. Sergius and Petkoff have no idea that the story they heard about a soldier being helped by two Bulgarian women involves the Petkoffs". Bluntschli has come to return Major Petkoff's coat that Catherine and Raina lent him to escape. Raina is so happy to see him that she blurts out, "the chocolate cream soldier!" when she walks in the room, only to recover herself and blame her outburst, implausibly, on Nicola. Petkoff and Sergius, who have in fact already met Bluntschli during the war, ask Bluntschli to stay and pass the time.
In the final act, the various tensions of the play thus far are exposed. Louka tells Sergius that the man with whom Raina is in love is Bluntschli. Sergius challenges Bluntschli to a duel because of this, but Bluntschli explains his way out of it. A picture of herself that Raina placed in her father's cloak for Bluntschli to find is exposed, proving that Raina has not been entirely truthful to Sergius. Raina admits that she has had feelings for Bluntschli since they first met. Major Petkoff is aghast. When Bluntschli acknowledges that he has loved Raina, Sergius and Louka reveal that they have been having a secret affair at Sergius' instigation, and Nicola releases Louka from their engagement. Bluntschli, whose father has just died, has come into a great deal of money, so Raina's parents are glad to marry her off to him and his handsome fortune. Raina is revealed to be twenty-three rather than seventeen, enabling Bluntschli in good conscience to ask for her hand in marriage. Bluntschli promises to hire Nicola, whom he admires, to run the hotels he has just received as part of his inheritance. Sergius accepts Louka as his lover in public, thus satisfying Louka's desire to move up in the social ranks.
Chapter 6: Conclusion
It is difficult to conclude a research work like this thesis paper because research means looking for the answers to certain questions which may not be found through just one academic assignment. George Bernard Shaw's Arms and the Man is a highly reputed play. Literature students and teachers have been all the time working on such dramas. So, it is not easy to use the word 'conclusion' as far as literary research is concerned. However, some of the significant things which I have found while writing this thesis paper are presented in following paragraphs.
George Bernard Shaw has declined the popular illusions about love and war. Love in the fantasies of lovers is quite different from love in real life-this is one very important message that George Bernard Shaw has given us through Arms and the Man. Men and women have various fancies about their beloveds but in most cases these fancies and imaginations do not come true. This play further shows that love is not so easy like it is often seen in movies or books. Moreover, love is not free of social discrimination. Lovers sometimes find it challenging to overcome the social and economic barriers which build up unwanted walls between them. When it comes to reality, lovers in many cases have to compromise with the limitations of the people they love. At the end of the play we find the main characters coming up with the realization that the ideal form of love which exists in romantic thoughts is not always real. So, the gap between facts and fantasies regarding love is very clearly seen in Arms and the Man.
George Bernard Shaw has also rejected the popular vision of war. War is not just the display of bravery by soldiers. All soldiers do not fight wars to show off their heroics. All soldiers do not go to war to die like heroes. All warriors do not want ballads to be written in their admiration. War is a very terrible thing which causes deaths of many people. Sometimes war has noble causes but some wars are not fought with fair targets. Besides, soldiers can prove their intelligence and courage by surviving in war, not just by sacrificing their life though George Bernard Shaw does not mean to undermine those who are killed in wars. The playwright has utilized the men and women in the play for establishing his viewpoint.
George Bernard Shaw is a modern playwright. Arms and the Man is one of those plays by George Bernard Shaw which bears reflections of Europe's entry into the modern era.
Arms and the Man hints at some social drawbacks which need to be eliminated. The prominent characters in the play are either troubled or benefited by social categorization. This is a scenario from the realities around us. People in this world cannot fulfill all their desires. George Bernard Shaw is a realistic dramatist. That is why we find the characters in this play finally accepting the reality dropping their previous imaginary thoughts.
Jannat Jahan Chowdhury was a student in Department of English Language and Literature at Metropolitan University, Sylhet.
