Description
Arms and the Man is a comedy by George Bernard Shaw and also the great playwright’s first major commercial success. The play was first produced in 1894 and it came out in book form four years later, in 1898, in the volume entitled Plays Pleasant.The title was inspired by Virgil’s Aeneid, which opens with the same words, and the play deals with the futility of war in Shaw’s witty and humorous style. The comedy is set in 1885 in the Serbo-Bulgarian War. Raina Petkoff, the heroine of the play, is engaged to Sergius Saranoff, a war hero. One night, a mercenary in the Serbian army called Bluntschli jumps in through Raina’s window and threatens the woman to kill her if she tries to warn the others in the house.In the meantime, Bulgarian soldiers come to the house in search of the mercenary, but they don’t find him because Raina decides to help him hide. Then she and her mother also help him leave the house without getting noticed, disguised in a raincoat. The plot continues after the war when Saranoff returns to Raina. He flirts with the servant and Raina soon realizes that she is no longer in love with him. Bluntschli also returns to give back the coat he was wearing when he sneaked out of the house.The servant tells Saranoff that Raina is secretly in love with Bluntschli, which leaves to the couple’s break up. Saranoff challenges Bluntschli to a duel, but the later avoids the conflict. At the end, Saranoff proposes to the servant girl and Raina and Bluntschli are also united, so it all ends well and happily.Arms and the Man is considered by many critics to be one of Shaw’s wittiest, most brilliant plays, a comedy that is lighthearted at the surface, but is complex and revealing for an audience that pays attention to subtleties.
Product ID: 9781776666881
Sku: WP-BXQK-IG8Y
