The play discusses how war is made, how it is fought, and how parties sue for peace at the close of it. Indeed, the play’s title is a direct quote from Virgil’s Aeneid, the Roman epic that glorifies war. Shaw used this quote ironically, drawing attention to how war should not be seen as romantic.
The Serbo-Bulgarian War is not addressed directly in the text, although that is the historical template on which Shaw bases his production. Bluntschli is a Swiss mercenary who has hired himself to the Serb cause, along with soldiers from other nations. Sergius is supposed to represent the “heart” of the Bulgarian enterprise, with his gutsy charge at the start of the work demonstrating just how powerfully he wishes to defend his nation’s honour. What becomes clear as the play progresses, however, is that war is simply a job for soldiers, and nothing more. Sergius is not the hero he is initially thought to be. He romanticizes war to such an extent that he leads a foolish charge against the enemy and only does so to climb the ranks for recognition. Bluntschli also destroys Raina’s romantic idea of war and heroism when he proves that the best soldiers are often not identified as such on the outside.
For Shaw, war is simply a way for men to occupy themselves, perhaps in redrawing small parts of the national borders, while others on the domestic front, who are predominantly women, shape many more aspects of life. Though Catherine and Raina are ostensibly dependent upon the outcome of the war, in dealing with Bluntshli they are also active participants in some of its intrigues. In harbouring an enemy and ultimately marrying him, they add to the argument that war and its divisiveness can be meaningless.
The characters' interactions are primarily driven by romantic love or lack thereof. Social conventions of love during Shaw’s period included public and formal courting, parental approval, and consideration of each partner's social status and wealth. However, the characters in this play defy the norms and each end up with a person that is best suited to them.
Characters slowly disabuse themselves of the features of romantic love they have most cherished all their lives, and realize that it is far more complex. For example, Raina does appear to love Sergius at the beginning of the play, but when she falls in love with Blunstshcli, she realizes her love for Sergius was superficial. Perhaps Raina only felt this way because Sergius was lauded as a hero and because Catherine and Petkoff supported the union to maintain the family’s social status.
By contrast, Louka, though engaged to her fellow servant Nicola, does not appear to have ever been in love with him, and demonstrates that she is willing to work hard to marry into a higher rank. Romantic love does not seem to be a factor in her decisions. The beginnings of Louka’s relationship with Sergius are illicit and defy the social norms of courtship. Bluntschli’s introduction to Raina is also unconventional, as they meet secretly in her bedroom. And when they finally become engaged, Bluntschli, the pragmatic and calculating soldier, surprises everyone by revealing himself to be a lifelong romantic.
The social station of the characters in the play is
one of the dynamics that becomes most pronounced by its end. Louka wants to be
more than a servant, whereas Nicola seems content to remain one. Bluntschli
appears to be middle class but reveals later that he is far wealthier
than the noble Petkoffs. Petkoff and Catherine want Raina to reinforce the
family’s position however she can, either by marrying the ostensibly bravest
man in Bulgaria, Sergius or by adding greatly to the family’s coffers by
joining with Bluntschli.
As in any marriage narrative of the nineteenth century, romantic love might be a part of the marriage calculation, as it certainly didn’t hurt to love one’s partner. But that is far from the point of marriage in this period. Characters want to unite noble families and improve financial situations. What romantic love tends to do in these situations, then, is cut across and destabilize what might be the otherwise orderly transfer of money between families.
Throughout the play, Shaw demonstrates that concepts like good versus bad, or courage versus cowardliness, have at least as much to do with the situations in which one finds oneself as they do with the innate qualities of that person. Bluntschli is innately a person for whom innate qualities don’t seem to matter. He is a man who makes his decisions based on the circumstances in which he finds himself. This view on life might be bewildering to an outsider, but it allows him to survive the war as a soldier, and eventually win Raina’s hand in marriage.
It would be tempting to say that Bluntschli achieves these successes because he is simply a better man, soldier, and lover than Sergius. But what makes Bluntschli better is his willingness to cast aside those categories in favour of a more fluid morality that allows for lying and misrepresentation to protect his life. Bluntschli is willing not just to overlook the mistakes Raina makes. He believes that that is a natural part of loving anyone, just as it’s natural for a soldier to want to survive a conflict rather than die in it.
In this sense, Bluntschli most strongly embodies Shaw’s understanding of circumstantial ethical decision-making. Raina does, too, in her admission to Bluntschli that she is not always perfectly honest. On the other side is Sergius, a man who purports to be good all the way to his core, but then admits to Louka that he contains “many persons” inside him, some of who behave admirably, and others who will do whatever it takes to satisfy their basest urges, as in philandering while his fiancĂ©e is off-stage.
Shaw’s discussion of romantic love is more complex than it seems initially. Love is most certainly not what Raina imagines in Act One, which is joining her soul to Sergius’s, and the idea that they might live happily together. Their union seems perfect, with her perfect virtuosity, and his bravery and nobleness. Shaw depicts that kind of love as being built on misrepresentation of how humans actually behave apart from fairy tales.
But Shaw does not abandon the idea of romantic love entirely. Instead, he seems to allow for it only when characters get rid of most of their presuppositions about what love could, or should, be. Bluntschli abandons much of the pretence of soldierly bravery in front of Raina when he hides in her room and is fearful and sleepy. And Raina admits that she is not a perfectly pure individual, as she occasionally does and says things that go against classically good and upright behaviour.
It’s slightly more difficult to place Sergius and Louka on this spectrum of romantic love. For them, a relationship is a network of lust and desire coupled with the improvement of one’s social standing. This is perhaps not romantic love in the way Bluntschli and Raina demonstrate, and it is surely not romantic love according to Raina’s conception at the start of the play. But it is nonetheless a foundation for a relationship in practice. Shaw seems to place far more emphasis on the way people really behave, rather than on their idealized notions about “correct” attitudes and conduct.
Arms and the Man satirizes Bulgarian and European attitudes toward modernization, technological development, and the centres of cultivation like Paris, London, and Moscow. Catherine brags that the family has installed an electric bell for the servants, even though Petkoff is much more comfortable continuing to yell for them at the top of his lungs. Raina, Catherine, and Petkoff brag that the family has a library in the estate, which is the only one in the region. Yet as the scene description finally notes in Act Three, this library is just a room with a few old volumes. Despite this reality, the Petkoffs truly believe they are at the vanguard of artistic and cultural life at the time.
