Arms and the Man: Shaw's Plot Construction

Shaw once remarked:

“I avoid plots like the plague … … My procedure is to imagine character and let them live.”

Shaw reached against “the well-made” conventional play that held the stage at the time, and rejected the Aristotelian dictum of the primacy of plot. Yet, “Arms and the Man” is a well-made play with much in it that is conventional. It may be a “drama of ideas”, but it is also a masterpiece from the purely theatrical point of view.It is the least didactic of the plays of Shaw

The opening of the play is conventional and melodramatic. There is news of war and heroism, sound of shooting in the streets, a fugitive from the field with soldiery at his heels, a lone maiden in her bedroom and the entrance of the fugitive with a pistol aimed at her head. The purpose of the dramatist is to get attention of the audience after which the melodramatic thrills subside and the dramatist settles to more serious purpose. Shaw often expressed himself against the use of chance and accident. He regarded it as a fake device and a serious fault of the conventional drama. It is a sheer chance that Bluntschli enters the room of the betrothed of the ‘hero’ of Slivnitza and tells her the truth about his cavalry charge. The confrontation of Bluntschli and Raina is the confrontation of the romantic and the realistic and is of great psychological interest. Shaw has succeeded in making discussion as interesting as action itself. The discussion ends after the psychological change in Raina. Bluntschli falls asleep as soon as he becomes Raina’s “poor darling”. There is no superfluity, no long speeches or philosophical discussions. There is no dull moment throughout the Act I, suspense is well-maintained through little surprises. Discussion, though psychologically essential, in no way comes in the way of the play’s theatrical effectiveness.

Act I introduces us directly to the principal characters of the play as Raina, Bluntschli, Catherine and Louka and indirectly, through conversation between Catherine and Raina, to Sergius and Major Petkoff. The two basic themes of the play, war and love, are also introduced and it is suggested that it is the romance of war which feeds the romance of love.

Act I is built round the conflict of the romantic and realistic attitudes towards war; Act II is built round the conflict between romantic and realistic attitudes towards love. In Act I, it is Bluntschli who shatters Raina’s romantic notions of war and makes her realize the truth about war; in Act II, it is the practical Louka who exposes the hollowness of romantic love. The love scene between Sergius and Louka is a parody of the scene of higher love between Sergius and Raina. Similarly, Raina’s conversation with her mother soon after reveals the state of her heart. As Eric Bentley points out:

“The play is hung, as it were, on the cunningly told tale of the lost coat with the photograph in its pocket.”

Numerous hints and suggestions bring out the vital importance to the plot of Petkoff’s old coat. It is this coat in which Bluntschli is smuggled out of the house by Raina and Catherine. It provides Bluntschli an excuse for a second visit to Petkoff's. His arrival with the coat is one of the major complications of the play. Catherine gets into a difficult situation. Raina’s arrival and hasty exclamation, “Oh! My chocolate cream soldier” brings in a minor crisis. Yet, the situation is saved by the tact and wits of Catherine, and Raina, too, acts her part well. Discourse is again in danger as Nicola arrives with the bag of the Swiss but his tactfulness saves the situation.

In Act III, the complications are resolved to a satisfactory conclusion. Nigel Alexander says:

“It is the theatrical and farcical device of the Major’s overcoat and the photography in its
packet inscribed, ‘from Raina to her chocolate cream soldier’ which is now used to extricate
his characters from their intellectual confusions and bring the play to a satisfactory conclusion.”

In Act III Shaw introduces three important conversations – between Bluntschli and Raina, Nicola and Louka, Louka and Sergius – which are of great psychological and theatrical interest. There are witty retorts and repartees. The dialogues are quick and lively with characters trying to uphold his or her opinion. The conflict is not of characters or of wills but of ideas. Finally the romantic mask is turn off Raina’s face and she is made to realize the truth about romantic love. Sergius is equally disenchanted. Their romantic ideals are punctured and they come out through the “conflict of ideas” much sadder and wiser. The play revolves round a double love-triangle – Sergius engaged to Raina but flirting with Louka, Louka engaged to Nicola but ambitious to marry Sergius and Raina turning to Bluntschli away from Sergius, her betrothed. In the resolution of this love-triangle, Raina’s photograph plays a crucial role. Failing to find in his pocket the photograph, the Major utters:

“Raina, to her chocolate cream soldier.”

He suspects something black in the bottom. Explanation now becomes necessary and is provided by Bluntschli. Nicola denies his engagement to Louka but by a lucky chance the father of the Swiss died a short while ago and he has ‘inherited his enormous wealth’. Thus a suitable conclusion of the complication becomes possible.

The technical novelty of the play lies in its wide use of bathos. Bluntschli and Louka do not rise to the romantic heights of Sergius and Raina; instead Sergius and Raina drop down to the level of Louka and Bluntschli. Sergius is shown as a romantic fool; Raina is proved as hypocrite and liar, and the realist Bluntschli is shown to have a romantic nature. Bluntschli “is shown an enchanted soul whom nothing will disenchant”. This is resolution by anticlimax which raises the play to the heights of pure comedy despite pure farcical elements.

Those who criticize “Arms and the Man” for lack of action, forget that it is a play of idea, unlike traditional theatre. There is enough action in it but this action is internal rather than external indicated by the clever verbal-exchanges between characters. The chief source of interest lies in the way in which psychological change is induced in Raina and her romantic ideals are punctured. Mentally she moves down to the level of Bluntschli. The play is of psychological interest and theatrically effective arising form its melodramatic opening and its numerous intriguing and farcical situations. It is a successful stage-play and an effective “drama of ideals”. It makes the readers laugh and think. In short, the play has a natural and happy development with numerous little surprises to keep up the interest of the audience.