ARMS AND THE MAN COMIC ELEMENTS

“Arms and the Man” is not merely a farce but a true comedy. The purpose of a comedy is to ridicule and expose human or social folly or weakness and to drive that folly out of courts. Though there is ample of farcical, loud laughter in the play, but the laughter has a serous purpose and this differentiates the play from a mere farce. Shaw laughs, but his laughter has a serious purpose. Besides provoking mirth he also provokes thoughts.

Shaw is one of the greatest humorists in English literature the other humourist are Shakespeare and Dickens. However, Shaw’s is different from both Shakespeare and Dickens as his humour arises from the difference between instinctive conduct, or social institutions and social codes of conduct. This is Shaw’s contribution to the art of comedy.

“Arms and the Man” is rich in humour. There is enough of humour of characterin the play. Major Petkoff, Catherine Petkoff, Sergius and Captain Bluntschli are all humorous as in their thoughts, words and actions they are below the normal level. Catherine Petkoff’s pride in the electric bell, in two staircases and library is the rich sources of humour. The confusion of Catherine amuses us, as Bluntschli decides to stay with them as their guest while Catherine wants him to go away, at once, to avoid a disclosure of their sheltering Bluntschli. There is much fun and humour in the play, with Bluntschli’s carving for chocolate creams and shying like a frightened horse and nervous like a mouse. He creates loud laughter when he judges Raina to be a “school-girl of seventeen”, or when he lists the various items of his enormous wealth.

Nor is humour of situation lacking in the play. There is the very first scene in the bedroom of Raina. The humour arises from the conflict of the natural conduct of Bluntschli with the conventional conduct of Raina. He is an intruder, a fugitive and an enemy, whereas Raina is the daughter of one of the most influential man in Bulgaria. It is expected that he would be perturbed, while she would remain self-possessed. But the contrary happens. The instinctive Bluntschli, is self-possessed, while the lady, who has nothing but romance, is perturbed. Finally, the intruder converts the lady to her own point of view. Numerous other examples of the humour of situation may be easily cited from the play.

Shaw’s humour often verges on the farcical. The coat-episode, the photograph-episode, and the chocolate-cream episode are all sources of farcical humour. Shaw’s habit of deflating big names or giving people nicknames is another source of broad humour in his plays. Raina nicknames Bluntschli as, “chocolate-cream soldier”, because he loves to eat chocolates. 

“The higher love of Raina and Sergius, the military heroism of Sergius, the servility of Nicola and
his looking a fool and taking all the blame on himself are overdone and verge on the farcical”.

Shavian wit, too, are scattered all up and down the play. As Goad puts it: 

“Shaw revels in puns paradoxes, retorts and repartees”.

He has great skill in of saying fine sparkling things. Sometimes, Shaw’s wit is light and innocent, and at other times it has rapier-like thrust and is sharp and biting. When Petkoff returns from the front, Catherine proudly tells him that she has got fitted an electric bell in their home, because civilized people do not shout for their servants. At this Petkoff resorts,

“Civilized people do not hang out their washing to dry where visitors can see it so you would better have all that part somewhere else.”

But it is Petkoff, who gets the worst of it for Catherine silences him with her clever repartee, 

“I do not think really civilized people notice such things”.

When Sergius asks Louka,

“If you were in love with me, would you spy out of windows on me”,

Louka wittily replies,

“Well you see, Sir, Since you are half a dozen gentleman all at once, I shall have a great deal to look after”,

And Sergius is obliged to praise her, 

“Witty as well as pretty”.

Louka’s wit is sharp and biting when she retorts to Sergius,

“whatever clay I made of, you are made of the same”.

In Arms and the Man, Shaw’s intentions are comic and through the use of bathos or anti-climax he attains his intention. Sergius and Raina become comic figures, as the hollowness of their romantic love, and their romantic attitudes and poses are exposed and the essential inner self is revealed. Both come down to the level of Louka and Bluntschli.

Shaw shows that war is not heroic, but something horrible and brutal; soldiers are not heroes but fools and cowards, who fight only because they are bound to fight. Sergius’ heroic victory appears in a comic light, when it is discovered that he could win only because that Serbian gunmen had the wrong ammunition with them. 

“…he ought to be courtmartialled for it.… He and his regiment simply committed suicide – only the pistol missed fire.”

Sergius makes love to Louka soon after ‘the higher love scene’. Similarly, Raina wishes to scandalize Sergius, and half wishes that he should find out about her having sheltered in her bedroom her chocolate-cream soldier.

Thus Shaw has demonstrated the folly of romantic ideals of love and war, his purpose in writing the plays. He has provided ample of fun and humour for his readers and audience, but he has also achieved his serious purpose.

XI WK BK PGS 60 TO 62

8 (i) : The Man was Swiss. He was wearing a Serbian uniform as he was a mercenary in the Serbian army. He had joined the Serbian army as they were the first group who had sought his services. The Serbs had been engaged in a war with the Bulgarians and he was in one of the Serbian artillery regiments - the one which was attacked and defeated by Sergius' cavalry regiment. having been defeated, he had scattered with many of the others in his regiment and thus, he was still wearing the Serbian uniform though it was in a pathetic state.

(ii) : The man says that he will be killed by the waves of Bulgarian soldiers and Bulgarian civilians who are pursuing the Serbian soldiers who after their defeat in the Battle at Slivnitza had fled through the Dragoman pass and come into the town. The Bulgarian soldiers and civilians wanted to complete the job that was not completed at Slivnitza by the Bulgarian army - the Bulgarians hated the Serbians, who were their enemies.

(iii) : The man says that he does not want to be killed because he claims that it is the duty of each soldier to live as long as he can. It tells us that the man is very practical. He realizes that dead soldiers are no use to an army, whereas live ones who can fight for their country are useful. However, Raina, in her romanticism, thinks that he is a coward and afraid to die.

(iv) : (a) : It is our duty to live as long as we can : means that soldiers are expected not to waste their lives and and take all the necessary means to protect their lives and to continue to serve the army. It does not mean that they should not be courageous. However, it does mean that they should not be suicidal.
         (b) : I'll fight like a demon means that 'The Man' will face the probability of the Bulgarians forcing their way into Raina's room to capture or kill him with daring. He will defend himself to the death. He will also inflict as much hurt or even kill some of the enemy should they attempt to capture or kill him. To this end he unsheathes his sabre.

(v) : The man is referring to the wild Bulgarian soldiers and the blood-thirsty Bulgarian civilians pursuing the defeated Serbian fugitives. When Louka comes in she describes them as "so wild and drunk and furious".
         Raina had been prepared for the night. She had actually been in bed when the man had entered her room and thus she was clothed only in her night dress. Her mantle of furs was on the ottoman. The Man realises that Raina would not want to open her doors to men who were drunk and furious and wild and who could take advantage off a woman who they saw dressed as she was. Thus the man takes her cloak and tells her that it will be up to her to keep his pursuers away from him. He also tries and makes her feel vulnerable by harping on the word "undress".

(vi) : 'The Man' is definitely reveals himself to be the realist here and Raina is the idealist.
         I say that he is a realist, because he makes no effort to hide the truth of what happen if the Bulgarian soldiers who have been pursuing him catch up with him. He is also a realist when he says that it is a soldiers duty to live as long as he can. as an army needs soldiers to fight a war and while he does not subscribe to soldiers being cowards and running away from danger, we sense that he wishes to state that soldiers are not meant to be suicidal. He is also a realist when he warns her about the state in which the pursuing soldiers and mob will be - later Louka, supports his words when she describes them as "wild and drunk and furious". 

XII AATM WK BK PGS 192 TO 194

7 (i) : "Bluntschli is referring to the lie that Raina is protesting she had told for Bluntschli's sake.
          Her expression had indicated that in telling the lie she had done violence to nature. She protests her honesty remonstrating that she has only two lies in her whole life and that was only for Bluntschli's sake - to save his life when it was in grave danger.

    (ii) : According to Bluntschli, the two things which happen to a soldier so often are that he hears people telling lies so often that it doesn't surprise him. The second thing which happens to a soldier very often is that many different people save him in so many different circumstances and that it is so common that he cannot be expected to remember each time that this happened or the persons who had saved him.

   (iii) : Bluntschli says that a soldier "thinks nothing of them" because he says that these experiences (hearing people tell lies and having the experience of people saving him) are so common place in his life that each incident and person cannot be remembered.
            Bluntschli romanticizes was and soldier-ship in this play. He may seem without any moral code and ungrateful in making such a statement, but he is merely stating that common place happenings in our life are not remembered in their detail.

(iv) : According to Raina, if what Bluntschli has said about soldiers in the passage is true, then soldiers as a result of their experience in the army and battle become people incapable of faith and gratitude.
          This would happen to soldiers because their constant exposure to lies and being saved by all sorts of people all the time all the time results, according to Bluntschli, in them insensitive to people telling lies and forgetful of the occasions and the persons who had saved them.

(v) : "if pity is akin to love, gratitude is akin to the other thing" is the comment Bluntschli makes to comment on gratitude, which he says he doesn't like. Thus we can take it that Bluntschli does not think highly of gratitude. He believe that we pity those we love and that we express gratitude to somone we do not have real affection for but we express our thanks because it is expected of people with good behaviour to express their thankfulness for a good done to the. Thus gratitude is a type of artificial behaviour.

(vi) : Raina expects that people live up to their ideals e.g. honesty, when she knows that "life is seldom ever like that, indeed, never" as she had said earlier. Yet she feigns a totally honest attitude for fear that others may not think highly of her otherwise.
        On the other hand Bluntschli is very frank and realistic. He openly states slightly later "I'm quite a straightforward an myself; but it wouldn't last me a whole morning". He thus emphasizes by an exaggeration that realistically we expect people to compromise on the truth, especially if doesn't harm another person or if it could protect someone.

XI WK BK PGS 58 TO 60

7 (i) : 'The Man' whose voice is heard in this extract is one of the soldiers from the artillery regiment which Sergius' cavalry regiment had defeated and scatter "like chaff" at the battle of Slivnitza.  'The Man' had, with other Serbian soldiers fled from the battlefield, through the Dragoman pass and had come into the town where the Petkoff's home was. He had in desperation climbed up a pipe into the the balcony of Raina's room and had entered her room. Later we will hear that 'The Man' is a Swiss national and that his name is Bluntschli.

  (ii) : Raina is in her room.
          Since it is night Raina has been reading a paper-backed book before going to sleep. She had been out on the balcony admiring the beauty of the night, but when Louka came and warned her mother and herself of the possible entry of fugitives into the town and of firing, thee windows had been closed. Raina had adored the picture of Sergius and then started reading before she heard the sound of shooting. She had then put off the light.

   (iii) : 'The Man' threatens Raina not to "raise" her voice - meaning that she should not call out for help or in fright so as to alert the household of his presence. He threatened her by saying "my revolver will go off", i.e. that he will shoot her.

   (iv) : Raina listens to 'The Man' and does not call out.
            Raina does not call out as she does not know who it is who has entered her room and she is probably afraid of being killed should she scream in fright or to alert the household.

   (v) : We soon find out that 'The Man' throws down the revolver in favour of Raina's cloak as a better means of protecting himself against those who would like to kill or capture him. He informs Raina that the revolver is not loaded and that it was useless as it was not loaded and that he had no cartridges for it. The revolver is left on the ottoman and remains there when the Russian officer comes in to check the room and balcony for the Serbian soldier who was seen climbing the pipe into Raina's room. Neither the Russian Officer nor Catherine had seen the revolver on the ottoman. The only person who had seen it had been Louka, who immediately sensed that Raina was hiding someone.
          The incident tells us that 'The Man' is clever enough to use the empty revolver to threaten Raina. However, his not carrying cartridges and carrying chocolate instead makes us wander what type of a soldier he is. However, we later find that he is a very pragmatic person, is quite courageous and very skilled in the art of war and is a professional soldier - a mercenary. 

XI WK BK PGS 56 TO 58

(i) : Louka is the maid-servant in the Petkoff home.
       Louka asks Catherine and Raina to close all the windows as she did not want a bullet from a gun being fired in the streets by either the fleeing Serbian soldiers or the pursuing Bulgarian soldiers of the townspeople, entering the house and injuring either one of the occupants or destroying the home and its contents. She may also have wanted the home to be secure against fugitives seeking refuge in the house.

(ii) : The Serbs were being chased by the Bulgarian cavalry after Sergius' regiment had routed them at the battle of Slivnitza and scattered them "like chaff". They were also being chased by the towns people and local Bulgarians.
        The defeated and fleeing Serbian soldiers were being chased because Bulgarians wanted to push home their advantage of their defeat in the battle of Slivnitza and either kill all of the enemy or take them prisoner.
        The fleeing Serbian soldiers were likely to enter the town in which the Petkoff's lived because after being defeated at the battle of Slivnitza, some of the Serbian soldiers had fled through the Dragoman pass and this town was near it (so we are told in the introduction to Act 1).

(iii) : Catherine wants to ensure that her home is made secure against the fleeing Serbs and the Bulgarian soldiers and people pursuing them and from damage by bullets. Thus, as her maid servant Louka is securing Raina's room, she is rushing to the lower part of the house to make it safe.
          The characteristic trait of Catherine which is referred to in this extract are her "housekeeping instincts". This trait refers to to her natural inclination to ensure that all is done so as to create a suitable home for her family. Catherine's promptness to do so also shows that she is is a proactive person - she was described as "energetic" by the dramatist in his introduction to her.

(iv) : The "wretched fugitives" are the defeated and fleeing Serbian soldiers.
         Raina feels that there is no glory in killing them because Raina is a romantic person at heart. She sees soldiers and war as a patriotic and chivalrous undertaking. Thus killing defeated and outnumbered enemy soldiers who would not be able to to defend themselves is not in keeping with her "heroic ideas".

(v) : This extract creates suspense in the play as it introduces an unexpected event. The action seemed all but over with the end of the war at Slivnitza which would see to the return of Paul and Sergius who had been at the war and we would have expeced the marriage of Raina and Sergius to take place now that Sergius had proved himself by being the hero of the battle at Slivnitza. But the complication of fugitives entering the town brings the probability of another danger threatening to anticipated happiness of Raina.

CLASS 12 WK BK PG 190 TO 192

(i) : Raina asks Bluntschli to be serious as she had been telling Bluntschli that the "particular friend", whom we later learn is named Stolz, had told Sergius and Paul about Catherine and Raina having given Blunstschli refuge in their home. Bluntschli does not seem to be overly concerned about the impact the story would have on Sergius and Paul and merely pretends concern. When Raina had told Bluntschli that Sergius would challenge him to a duel and kill him he replies "Bless me ! Than don't tell him" - i.e. then don't tell Sergius that the man given refuge is none other than Bluntschli.
       Raina says that she cannot deceive Sergius. Raina is acting out with that "noble attitude" and "thrilling voice" with which she has deceived so many persons and with which she presently pretends and acts out the "higher love" to Sergius.

(ii) : In this extract Raina says "I want to be quite perfect with Sergius : no meanness, no smallness, no deceit. My relation to him is the one really beautiful and noble part of my life." Raina in this extract continues to put on the "noble attitude", of "higher love" which she had recently been acting out with Sergius after they were left alone for the first time since Sergius' return from the war. But we know that this disposition is a pretense. She had further asked Bluntschli "can you realise what it is to me to deceive him?" - yet she had not only given refuge to Bluntschli (the enemy), which at best we could consider to be the result of her compassionate nature, but she had also kept a portrait of herself in his pocket with the words ""Raina, to her chocolate cream soldier : a souvenir" - which is quite deceitful. However, we could excuse Raina's mixed communications as the reactions of a young lady torn in her emotions between a man whom she had hero-worshiped and a man whom she felt completely at ease in relating to.

(iii) : Raina would not like Sergius to find out the truth of the story invented by her about the 'chocolate cream soldier' because if Sergius found out that that story was not true, he would want to know what had caused Raina to make that exclamation when she entered the garden shortly after Bluntschli's arrival. He would probably then know that Raina had addressed Bluntschli as the 'chocolate cream soldier' and he might break off his engagement with Raina. The break off of the engagement might cause bitterness between the Saranoffs and the Petkoffs.

(iv) : Raina says that she had only told lies twice in her entire life.
         She says that she told the first lie to the Russian officer who had come to s3earch her room for the Serbian soldier who had been seen climbing onto her balcony. Raina had told the lie that she had seen no Serb and that she was sure that no one had entered her room, in roder to save Bluntschli.
         Raina says that she told the second lie - excusing her exclamation "Oh ! the chocolate cream soldier !" as an expression of her disappointment that Nicola had destroyed the beautiful ornament she had made for an ice pudding - in order as it is said here in the quote - to save Bluntschli's life.She says she made the escuse so that Sergius would not find out that Bluntschli was the 'chocolate cream soldeir' and thus challenge him to a duel for attempting to rob him of his fiance, a duel which might end in, she fears, Bluntschli being killed.

(v) : I believe that Raina has been confused regarding her true feelings regarding Sergius ever since 'The man' / Bluntschli came on the scene. While her relationship with Sergius carries on an artificial way of behaviour she has carried on with since her childhood, she has now met a person whom she has true affection for - not worshiping him or calling him her Lord, king and hero, but using words which capture her affection - "the poor darling" / 'chocolate cream soldier". Raina carries on with the pretence that she is still in love with Sergius and takes her engagement to him seriously until she is sure that Bluntschli will be truly hers.