Arms and the Man
A Pleasant Play
by George Bernard Shaw
Contents
INTRODUCTION
ARMS AND THE MAN
ACT I
ACT II
ACT III
INTRODUCTION
To the irreverent—and which of us will claim entire exemption from that
comfortable classification?—there is something very amusing in the
attitude of the orthodox criticism toward Bernard Shaw. He so obviously
disregards all the canons and unities and other things which every
well-bred dramatist is bound to respect that his work is really
unworthy of serious criticism (orthodox). Indeed he knows no more about
the _dramatic art_ than, according to his own story in “The Man of
Destiny,” Napoleon at Tavazzano knew of the _Art of War_. But both men
were successes each in his way—the latter won victories and the former
gained audiences, in the very teeth of the accepted theories of war and
the theatre. Shaw does not know that it is unpardonable sin to have his
characters make long speeches at one another, apparently thinking that
this embargo applies only to long speeches which consist mainly of
bombast and rhetoric. There never was an author who showed less
predilection for a specific medium by which to accomplish his results.
He recognized, early in his days, many things awry in the world and he
assumed the task of mundane reformation with a confident spirit. It
seems such a small job at twenty to set the times aright. He began as
an Essayist, but who reads essays now-a-days?—he then turned novelist
with no better success, for no one would read such preposterous stuff
as he chose to emit. He only succeeded in proving that absolutely
rational men and women—although he has created few of the latter—can be
most extremely disagreeable to our conventional way of thinking.
As a last resort, he turned to the stage, not that he cared for the
dramatic art, for no man seems to care less about “Art for Art’s sake,”
being in this a perfect foil to his brilliant compatriot and
contemporary, Wilde. He cast his theories in dramatic forms merely
because no other course except silence or physical revolt was open to
him. For a long time it seemed as if this resource too was doomed to
fail him. But finally he has attained a hearing and now attempts at
suppression merely serve to advertise their victim.
It will repay those who seek analogies in literature to compare Shaw
with Cervantes. After a life of heroic endeavor, disappointment,
slavery, and poverty, the author of “Don Quixote” gave the world a
serious work which caused to be laughed off the world’s stage forever
the final vestiges of decadent chivalry.
The institution had long been outgrown, but its vernacular continued to
be the speech and to express the thought “of the world and among the
vulgar,” as the quaint, old novelist puts it, just as to-day the novel
intended for the consumption of the unenlightened must deal with peers
and millionaires and be dressed in stilted language. Marvellously he
succeeded, but in a way he least intended. We have not yet, after so
many years, determined whether it is a work to laugh or cry over. “It
is our joyfullest modern book,” says Carlyle, while Landor thinks that
“readers who see nothing more than a burlesque in ‘Don Quixote’ have
but shallow appreciation of the work.”
Shaw in like manner comes upon the scene when many of our social usages
are outworn. He sees the fact, announces it, and we burst into guffaws.
The continuous laughter which greets Shaw’s plays arises from a real
contrast in the point of view of the dramatist and his audiences. When
Pinero or Jones describes a whimsical situation we never doubt for a
moment that the author’s point of view is our own and that the abnormal
predicament of his characters appeals to him in the same light as to
his audience. With Shaw this sense of community of feeling is wholly
lacking. He describes things as he sees them, and the house is in a
roar. Who is right? If we were really using our own senses and not
gazing through the glasses of convention and romance and make-believe,
should we see things as Shaw does?
Must it not cause Shaw to doubt his own or the public’s sanity to hear
audiences laughing boisterously over tragic situations? And yet, if
they did not come to laugh, they would not come at all. Mockery is the
price he must pay for a hearing. Or has he calculated to a nicety the
power of reaction? Does he seek to drive us to aspiration by the
portrayal of sordidness, to disinterestedness by the picture of
selfishness, to illusion by disillusionment? It is impossible to
believe that he is unconscious of the humor of his dramatic situations,
yet he stoically gives no sign. He even dares the charge, terrible in
proportion to its truth, which the most serious of us shrinks from—the
lack of a sense of humor. Men would rather have their integrity
impugned.
In “Arms and the Man” the subject which occupies the dramatist’s
attention is that survival of barbarity—militarism—which raises its
horrid head from time to time to cast a doubt on the reality of our
civilization. No more hoary superstition survives than that the donning
of a uniform changes the nature of the wearer. This notion pervades
society to such an extent that when we find some soldiers placed upon
the stage acting rationally, our conventionalized senses are shocked.
The only men who have no illusions about war are those who have
recently been there, and, of course, Mr. Shaw, who has no illusions
about anything.
It is hard to speak too highly of “Candida.” No equally subtle and
incisive study of domestic relations exists in the English drama. One
has to turn to George Meredith’s “The Egoist” to find such character
dissection. The central note of the play is, that with the true woman,
weakness which appeals to the maternal instinct is more powerful than
strength which offers protection. _Candida_ is quite unpoetic, as,
indeed, with rare exceptions, women are prone to be. They have small
delight in poetry, but are the stuff of which poems and dreams are
made. The husband glorying in his strength but convicted of his
weakness, the poet pitiful in his physical impotence but strong in his
perception of truth, the hopelessly de-moralized manufacturer, the
conventional and hence emotional typist make up a group which the drama
of any language may be challenged to rival.
In “The Man of Destiny” the object of the dramatist is not so much the
destruction as the explanation of the Napoleonic tradition, which has
so powerfully influenced generation after generation for a century.
However the man may be regarded, he was a miracle. Shaw shows that he
achieved his extraordinary career by suspending, for himself, the
pressure of the moral and conventional atmosphere, while leaving it
operative for others. Those who study this play—extravaganza, that it
is—will attain a clearer comprehension of Napoleon than they can get
from all the biographies.
“You Never Can Tell” offers an amusing study of the play of social
conventions. The “twins” illustrate the disconcerting effects of that
perfect frankness which would make life intolerable. _Gloria_
demonstrates the powerlessness of reason to overcome natural instincts.
The idea that parental duties and functions can be fulfilled by the
light of such knowledge as man and woman attain by intuition is
brilliantly lampooned. _Crampton_, the father, typifies the common
superstition that among the privileges of parenthood are inflexibility,
tyranny, and respect, the last entirely regardless of whether it has
been deserved.
The waiter, _William_, is the best illustration of the man “who knows
his place” that the stage has seen. He is the most pathetic figure of
the play. One touch of verisimilitude is lacking; none of the guests
gives him a tip, yet he maintains his urbanity. As Mr. Shaw has not yet
visited America he may be unaware of the improbability of this
situation.
To those who regard literary men merely as purveyors of amusement for
people who have not wit enough to entertain themselves, Ibsen and Shaw,
Maeterlinck and Gorky must remain enigmas. It is so much pleasanter to
ignore than to face unpleasant realities—to take Riverside Drive and
not Mulberry Street as the exponent of our life and the expression of
our civilization. These men are the sappers and miners of the advancing
army of justice. The audience which demands the truth and despises the
contemptible conventions that dominate alike our stage and our life is
daily growing. Shaw and men like him—if indeed he is not absolutely
unique—will not for the future lack a hearing.
M.
ARMS AND THE MAN
ACT I
Night. A lady’s bedchamber in Bulgaria, in a small town near the
Dragoman Pass. It is late in November in the year 1885, and through an
open window with a little balcony on the left can be seen a peak of the
Balkans, wonderfully white and beautiful in the starlit snow. The
interior of the room is not like anything to be seen in the east of
Europe. It is half rich Bulgarian, half cheap Viennese. The counterpane
and hangings of the bed, the window curtains, the little carpet, and
all the ornamental textile fabrics in the room are oriental and
gorgeous: the paper on the walls is occidental and paltry. Above the
head of the bed, which stands against a little wall cutting off the
right hand corner of the room diagonally, is a painted wooden shrine,
blue and gold, with an ivory image of Christ, and a light hanging
before it in a pierced metal ball suspended by three chains. On the
left, further forward, is an ottoman. The washstand, against the wall
on the left, consists of an enamelled iron basin with a pail beneath it
in a painted metal frame, and a single towel on the rail at the side. A
chair near it is Austrian bent wood, with cane seat. The dressing
table, between the bed and the window, is an ordinary pine table,
covered with a cloth of many colors, but with an expensive toilet
mirror on it. The door is on the right; and there is a chest of drawers
between the door and the bed. This chest of drawers is also covered by
a variegated native cloth, and on it there is a pile of paper backed
novels, a box of chocolate creams, and a miniature easel, on which is a
large photograph of an extremely handsome officer, whose lofty bearing
and magnetic glance can be felt even from the portrait. The room is
lighted by a candle on the chest of drawers, and another on the
dressing table, with a box of matches beside it.
The window is hinged doorwise and stands wide open, folding back to the
left. Outside a pair of wooden shutters, opening outwards, also stand
open. On the balcony, a young lady, intensely conscious of the romantic
beauty of the night, and of the fact that her own youth and beauty is a
part of it, is on the balcony, gazing at the snowy Balkans. She is
covered by a long mantle of furs, worth, on a moderate estimate, about
three times the furniture of her room.
Her reverie is interrupted by her mother, Catherine Petkoff, a woman
over forty, imperiously energetic, with magnificent black hair and
eyes, who might be a very splendid specimen of the wife of a mountain
farmer, but is determined to be a Viennese lady, and to that end wears
a fashionable tea gown on all occasions.
CATHERINE.
(_entering hastily, full of good news_). Raina—(_she pronounces it
Rah-eena, with the stress on the ee_) Raina—(_she goes to the bed,
expecting to find Raina there._) Why, where—(_Raina looks into the
room._) Heavens! child, are you out in the night air instead of in your
bed? You’ll catch your death. Louka told me you were asleep.
RAINA.
(_coming in_). I sent her away. I wanted to be alone. The stars are so
beautiful! What is the matter?
CATHERINE.
Such news. There has been a battle!
RAINA.