Arms And The Man

One of Shaws aims in this play is to debunk the ro humantic heroics of fight; he wanted to present a realistic floor of war and to remove all pretensions of nobility from war. It is not, however, an anti-war play; instead, it is a satire on those attitudes which would glorify war. To create this satire, Shaw chose as his gentle the opening lines of Virgils Aeneid, the Roman epic which glorifies war and the heroic feats of man in war, and which begins, Of arms and the man I sing. . . .

When the play opens, we check about the glorious exploits which were performed by Major Sergius Saranoff during his daring and kinglike cavalry raid, an event that turned the war against the Serbs toward victory for the Bulgarians. He thus becomes Raina Petkoffs ideal hero; yet the more that we take away about this raid, the more we realize that it was a futile, ridiculous gesture, champion that bordered on an utter suicidal escapade.

In contrast, captain Bluntschlis actions in Rainas bedroom strike us, at first, as cosmos the actions of a coward. (Bluntschli is a Swiss, a professional soldier scrap for the Serbs.



) He climbs up a water pipe and onto a balcony to escape capture, he threatens a defenseless woman with his gun, he allows her to hide him behind the curtains, and then he reveals that he carries chocolates earlier than cartridges in his cartridge box because chocolates are more mulish on the battlefield. Yet, as the play progresses, Bluntschlis unheroic actions become reasoncapable when we name that he survives, whereas had the war continued, Sergius absurd heroic exploits would soon pee-pee left him dead.

Throughout the play, Shaw arranged his material so as to satirize the glories associated with war and to ultimately suggest that aristocratic pretensions concord no place in todays wars, which are won by using business-like efficiency, such as the practical matters of which Bluntschli is a master. For example, Bluntschli is able to deal with the business of dispensing an...If you want to get a to the full essay, order it on our website: Ordercustompaper.com



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