Title of Arms And The Man - The Uncovered English

Arms And The Man

Play by George Bernard Shaw

Title of the play Arms And The Man

The title of the play Arms And The Man as George Bernard Shaw himself aknowledges in the preface to 'play pleasant' has been taken from the first line of Dryden's translation of Virgil's Aeneid. The Aeneid begins with the Latin phrase 'Arma Virmque cano.' In his translation Dryden skillfully renders the phrase as "Arms and the Man I sing" in the following lines:-

"Arms and the Man I sing, who forced by fate
And haughty Juno's unrelenting hate"

Virgil's phrase praises the soldier and the weapons of war. But Shaw's play is anti-romantic and anti-heroic and has a different purpose. To quote A Nicoll: In Arms and the Man, it is war and romantic soldering he would tilt against. Even then he would see that war was no longer a thing of banners and glory such a thing as 'Tamburlaine' and 'Othello' and Sir Walter Scott saw it, but a dull, sordid affair of brute strength and collons planning out.

In the play, Shaw shatters the age old romantic notion that men fight because they are heroes and that soldier who takes the biggest risks, wins the greatest glory and is thus made a greatest hero. The action evolves out of the background of war and deals with men in arms. But very soon, as the action develops, the hollowness and sham of war is exposed, and the romantic idealism of war is given a shattering blow. It is shown that Sergius, the hero of Slivnitza is a fool and an idiot and that he ought to have been courtmartialled for his own action. It is known that soldering is a coward art of attacking mercilessly when you are strong and keeping out of harms way when you are weak. When Sergius hears from the Bluntschli that the latter's friend and six men were burnt alive in the woodyard set on fire by the farmer's soldier, he cries out in sorrowful despair - "Oh war! war! the dream of patriots and heroes! A fraud Bluntschli a hollow sham like love."

There is another significance of the title, the other meaning of 'Arms' is perhaps referring to the embraces of lovers, thus giving a double meaning to the title. The story is both dealing with love and war. Raina's love for Sergius is based on romantic notions of love which are soon shattered by a practical professional soldier Bluntschli. He appeals to Raina so much so that she debelops a liking for him and ultimately the play terminates in their engagement. Again Louka entraps Sergius who is betrothed to Raina. Raina lovingly addresses Bluntschli "as a chocolate cream soldier." Here Shaw makes fun of army and romantic love by the term.

Shaw exposes in this play the fertility of the order that denies the man and defies his arms and shows up the intention of the man bound by the romantic bands of arms. He builds his play not on fun given by a particular soldier, but on the relation between man and his arms.

Thus Shaw contrary to Virgil shows that the glory of war and the heroism of soldiers are mere illusions. War is ridiculous horrible affair in which people are mercilessly burnt alive. Sergius, instead of emerging as a heroic figure at the end, is exposed, ridiculed and shown to be a more fool, a man of clay, easily entrapped into marriage by a mere servent girl. The supremacy not of the arms or of heroic valour, but of essential humanity of man is asserted. Man is essentially a creature of instincts and impulses and his basic instinct is one of self-presentation. A soldier's staple is not of arms or heroism but food and his chief concerns is not military glory but the preservation of his life.

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