Study Guide to The Major Plays of George Bernard Shaw

By Intelligent Education

A comprehensive study guide offering in-depth explanation, essay, and test prep for selected works by George Bernard Shaw, who is second only to Shakespeare in the eyes of British tradition. Titles in this study guide include Arms and the Man, Caesar and Cleopatra, Man an

• Language: English
• Publisher: Influence Publishers
• Release date: Sep 25, 2020
• ISBN: 9781645424277

Intelligent Education

Intelligent Education is a learning company with a mission to publish accessible resources and digital tools to educate the world. Their mission drives every project, from publishing books to designing software and online courses, film projects, mobile apps, VR/AR learning tools and more. IE builds tools to empower people who love to learn. Intelligent Education offers courses in science, mathematics, the arts, humanities, history and language arts taught by leading university professors from Wake Forest University, Indiana University, Texas A&M University, and other great schools. The learning platform features 3D models and 360 media paired with instructional videos for on-screen and Mixed Reality interaction that increases student engagement and improves retention. The IE team is geographically located across the United States and is a division of Academic Influence. Learn more at http://intelligent.education.

Book preview

ARMS AND THE MAN

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

The setting is a small town in Bulgaria in November, 1885. This was a troubled time for the Balkan states, threatened by the Turks and divided among themselves. While the Turks were preparing to invade, one of the states, Serbia, suddenly declared war on another, Bulgaria, which caused the Russians, allies of Bulgaria, to withdraw military support from that country. Left alone, poorly trained and equipped, the Bulgarian army surprised everyone by winning a signal victory at the village of Slivnitza in Bulgaria, another a few days later, and then by crossing the frontier into Serbia itself. At this point Austria, fearing a general outbreak of war and disruption of her Empire, intervened to negotiate a peace by the Treaty of Bucharest in March, 1886. All of these circumstances are referred to directly or indirectly in the course of the play. As for the title, it is derived from the opening lines of Virgil’s ancient Latin poem The Aeneid: Arms and the man I sing. . . .

CHARACTERS

Bluntschli

A Swiss, about thirty-five, serving as a professional soldier, an officer, in the Serbian army.

Raina

The heroine, a romantic Bulgarian girl of twenty-three.

Sergius

A handsome, moody young officer, Raina’s friend and hero.

Major Petkoff

Raina’s father.

Catherine

Raina’s mother.

Louka

A woman servant in the Petkoff household, young, attractive.

Nicola

A middle-aged man servant.

Russian Officer

in Bulgarian uniform (Act I).

PREFACE

Preface (to the volume of Plays Pleasant, 1898). Shaw does not tell us very much about this play or even about the other plays included in the volume which this preface heads. He primarily reviews his career as a writer of New Drama, a term that describes the plays considered advanced and even experimental in their day, produced for small audiences and not considered as having appeal for large popular theatres. Ibsen was part of the new movement or directions in drama, the Irish poet W. B. Yeats, and in great measure Shaw himself. Shaw advances and defends his conception of a theatre and drama devoted to a purpose greater than commercial entertainment for the unthinking, easily satisfied playgoers. To him the theatre is an important institution in the life of a nation, as important as the church or the law, whereby men become intellectually conscious of the lives they lead and the civilization they make. They must not be pandered to with fictitious inventions and seductive lies about the nature of reality. The theatre should be subsidized or supported by the state, and theatrical managers relieved of coping with the risky finances of theatrical production. In short, the theatre can be a place for (1) instruction in the true character of social institutions, (2) a platform for the dramatized analysis of genuine versus false idealism, and (3) an instrument to expose sham romantic conventions.

Comment

This preface is important in its statements about the theatre and the New Drama. Its interest is autobiographical and philosophical. Shaw outlines some of the steps he has taken in his career to this date and sets down the fundamentals of his dramatic and theatrical credo. Much of what he has to say in later prefaces and in some of the later plays has a beginning here.

ACT ONE

Setting

Raina’s bedroom. A night in November, 1885. Catherine Petkoff hastily enters her daughter Raina’s bedroom and excitedly reports the Bulgarian victory at the battle of Slivnitza (see above, Introduction). She is especially excited by the news that Raina’s fiance Sergius is said to the hero of the hour, having acted without orders and led a splendid charge that scattered the Serbo-Austrian enemy. Raina is happy to hear this, for it reassures her, as she tells her mother, that the heroic ideals she cherishes are real and not imaginary, vital and not just learned from books and plays, that Sergius’ bravery, which she had secretly doubted, is now proved genuine. The servant girl Louka comes in at this point, with information that Serbian fugitives are being chased and may have run into town; there may be shooting, and she urges her mistress to close the windows and make fast the shutters. Catherine goes to check the house, and Louka, after showing Raina how to open and close the shutters, goes out too. Raina, alone, takes up a portrait of Sergius, addresses words of reverence to it, then prepares to read herself to sleep. Shots break the night-time quiet, coming closer. Raina scrambles from bed to blow out her candle, then hurries back. Suddenly there is the sound of the shutters being opened from outside, and a figure drops into the room and scratches a match to get some