Shaw’s Idea of love, Marriage, and War as reflected in ""

The Idea of love, marriage and war are the recurring themes of “Arms and the Man”, a fantastic romantic comedyby George Bernard Shaw, a great modern playwright.  Shaw has shown that it is the romance of war that leads to the romance of love. He satirizes idealized notions of love and war in the comedy. 

The play opens with highly romantic views of love and war of Raina. She standing on the balcony of her bedroom, admiring the beauty of the night dreams of her fiancée, Sergius. Soon she learns that ignoring the orders of his Russian commander, he made a heroic charge on the artillery of the Serbs and put them to flight. Raina, in ecstasy, raptures kisses on the photo of her lover and her knight. She feels that she has been a ‘prosaic little coward’ in her doubts about Sergius’ heroism and is unworthy of him. Sergius’ heroism in war feeds her romantic love of him.

  Raina’s heroic ideals of war receives a violent shakewhen she is told the truth about Sergius’ cavalry charge. It was something foolish and rash, and Sergius ought to be court-martialed for it. He and his regiment nearly committed suicide, only the pistol missed fire.

“He and his regiment simply committed suicide – only the pistol”

  In Bluntschli, Shaw has presented a realistic portrait of an average soldier who is ready to fight when he must and is glad to escape when he can. Also, that a solder is an ordinary creature of flesh and blood, who suffers from hunger and fatigue and is roused to action only by danger. Even he demands chocolate to eat and says that he carries chocolates to the front instead of cartridges.

“What use are cartridges in battle? I always carry chocolate instead.”

In this play the idealistic notions of war are punctured revealing the horror of war and the death of the twelve soldiers.

 Both Sergius and Raina are disillusioned in their romantic ideas of war and love. Raina glorified Sergius as a hero and his heroism fed her love for him. On his return from the war, there is “higher love” between them. Sergius calls her his “Queen” and “goddess” and she calls him her “King” and “hero”. He is the medieval knight, and she is the source of his inspiration and heroism. They glorify each other and are blind to the faults of each other. They forget that the other is an ordinary creature of flesh and blood with common human perfections. This is the fault of all romantic love and Shaw has focused the searchlight of truth and reason on this fallacy. He has shown the imperfections of both Sergius and Raina.

 Shaw’s views on love and war are characterized by strict realism and are clearly brought out if we compare them with that of Tolstoy. Like Tolstoy he tells men that romantic war is only butchery and romantic love is only lust. Shaw only objects to them in so far as they are ideal. He objects not so much to war as to the praise of war. He does not so much dislike love as the love of love. Shaw only murmurs:

“Wars if you must, but for God’s sake, not war-songs.”

Last all we can say that Raina's ideas of war and also her ideas of love is unrealistic and impractical.  Raina falls for the more practical, experienced Bluntschli.  At the end of the play, Sergia is to marry Louka, Raina's servant.  Again, Shaw emphasizes that it is important to follow one's heart in matters of love, not social or familial expectations.