Ans: “Arms and the Man” is a remarkable play written by George Bernard Shaw. This very play is termed an anti-romantic comedy as it deals with the exposure of romantic illusions about love and war. Even the sub-title of the play “Arms and the Man” has been called an anti-romantic comedy in three Acts”. Shaw who is anti-romantic in his attitude to life attacks the romantic views of war and love in the play.

An anti-romantic comedy like a conventional comedy ends with the ringing of the marriage bells out uncompromisingly satirizes the romantic ideals existing in society. In this sense, “Arms and the Man” is undoubtedly an anti-romantic comedy.

Both war and love had been romanticized in the Victorian age. But Shaw revolted against romanticism and in this writing, he shows the realities of war and heroism very vividly. Through his mouthpiece, Bluntschli, Shaw shatters the romantic illusions of Raina and Sergius and converts them to his own views by making them face the facts of life.

In “Arms and the Man”, Shaw exposes the unsoundness of the romantic view of war. There was a popular view that war is a romantic game that gives a man the opportunity of displaying his heroism. And a soldier is a superman, a great hero above all weakness. The soldier who takes the biggest risk in war is the greatest hero. But Shaw ridicules the romantic views about war and soldiering in the play.

In the play, Raina and Sergius are two apostles of romantic illusions. She becomes wild in joy when she learns from her mother that Sergius has won the battle of Slivnitza by leading a cavalry charge against a battery of machine guns. She feels that all her ideas about Sergius’s heroism have been trying proven. She worships his portrait like a priestess and addresses it as the hero of her soul. In fact, she has a romantic notion about war. But she was cured of her romantic illusion after her conversation with Bluntschli. He tells her what is true about life and war. He says that soldiers are afraid to die and it is their duty to live as long as they can. He again tells her that  “nine soldiers out of ten are born fools”.

He further says that cartridges are of no use to a soldier on the battlefield. From his experience, he has learned that food is more useful to a fighting soldier than any weapon of war because food provides sufficient strength to fight heroically. He also shatters her ideas about Sergius’s heroism by telling her that Sergius led the cavalry charge like an utter fool because if Serbia had the right kind of ammunition in their machine gun the Bulgarians could be massacred. Bluntschli carriages chocolates in his pocket for “what use are the cartridges in battle?” He says that — “The young ones carry pistols and cartridges, the old ones grubs.” it is thus through Bluntschli that the dreadful reality of war is exposed to Raina who imagined war to be a glorious thing.

Sergius suffers disillusionment because he has romantic illusions about war and love. He has the illusion that war is a glorious thing where a soldier shows heroism and courage. But he comes to know that soldiering is the coward’s art of attacking enemies when they are weak and keeping them at a safe distance when they are stronger. When Bluntschli narrates the horror of war, Sergius’ romance is completely shattered and he considers war as a fraud, a hollow man.

In “Arms and the Man” Shaw takes a realistic view of love and marriage and exposes the hollowness of romantic love. Raina and Sergius have higher love for each other. But their higher love falls to tie them together. When Raina goes out of his sight, his sexual instinct is stirred by the physical charm of the maid-servant, Louka. Raina witnessed the scene through a window.

To sum up, we can say that in the play “ Arms and the Man” Shaw ridicules the romantic notion of love and war and shows the realities about them through his mouthpiece, Bluntschli. So undoubtedly we can mark the play “Arms and the Man” as an anti-romantic comedy.