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Arms and the Man
Arms and the Man is a play by George Bernard Shaw. The fact that it was first put on stage back in 1894 might make people think that it is quite an old-fashioned play. However, one can definitely...
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Arms and the Man
As of the expositional passage of the first scene, Raina and her mother are swept up in a nationalist frenzy of battle-glory and valor. This befits their sheltered, upper-class social milieu....
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Arms and the Man
The title of George Bernard Shaw's play Arms and the Man comes from the first line of Virgil's epic poem, the Aeneid. The first line of the poem in Latin is Arma virumque cano, which is often...
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Arms and the Man
The title is an allusion to the first line of Vergil's Aeneid. In English, the line translates as "I sing of arms and the man." In Vergil, "the man" is, of course, Aeneas, and "arms" refers to the...
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Arms and the Man
Your speculation – that Shaw is saying that War and Marriage share many traits, is not far-fetched, but not as fruitful as other lines of inquiry. The title, taken from Virgil, hints at the real...
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Arms and the Man
Arms and the Man by George Bernard Shaw is set during the Serbo-Bulgarian War. This was a war between Serbia and Bulgaria that started on 14 November 1885 and ended on 28 November 1885. More...
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Arms and the Man
You can answer this question on two levels, the explicit and the implicit. On the explicit level, Bluntschli gives them explicit instructions to tell the men that they must leave at once, and make...
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Arms and the Man
In all of literary history, these two characters have the most Romantic view of war. Don Quixote, of course, in his deluded state, believes he is in the Golden Age of chivalry, where the warrior’s...
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Arms and the Man
Taken from the opening to Virgil's The Aeneid, the title of George Bernard Shaw's play Arms and the Man reflects the adventures and misadventures of the Swiss soldier Bluntschli. A Swiss mercenary...
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Arms and the Man
Hello! You asked what is separately revealed about Raina, Bluntschli and Sergius in Act 3 of Arms And The Man. Raina At the beginning of the play (Act 1), Raina is engaged to Sergius, who is 'the...
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Arms and the Man
The first act of Shaw's Arms and the Man sets the plot of the play in motion, and introduces us to the main characters and themes. In the first act, we encounter the two major areas of conflict...
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Arms and the Man
This quote is spoken by Bluntschli to Sergius in Act III. Bluntschli is referring back to a conversation he had had with Raina in Act I, when he was a fugitive soldier hiding out in her room....
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Arms and the Man
To begin with, the stage directions of Arms and the Man—which, in Shaw’s plays, are always highly specific—lay the groundwork by introducing the prominent Bulgarian Petkoff family as big fish in a...
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Arms and the Man
First, our glimpse through the window helps establish the remote and romantic nature of the place. This is not an urban world, but rather the fairy tale world of a beautiful princess in her tower....
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Arms and the Man
Act I of Arms and the Man by George Bernard Shaw introduces two major themes of the play, the nature of love and war and the differences between their reality and the false images promulgated of...
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Arms and the Man
You are right to see a difficult class struggle in the character of Louka! She absolutely hates her station as a maid and a servant. Why? Well, first off, she is interested in Major Sergius...
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Arms and the Man
The title, of course, is from the opening line of Virgil’s Aeneid—“Of arms and the man I sing” and refers to the contrast between the political forces of war versus the human traits that war’s...
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Arms and the Man
'Problem play" is a term used to describe a kind of modernist play (late 19-early 20th century) that not only deals with a realistic mise-en-scene but with a real social problem, the "sides" of...
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Arms and the Man
First, my favorite characters may not be your favorites; this is something you really need to decide for yourself as you read the play. That being said, my favorite male character is Captain...
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Arms and the Man
As is typical of Shaw's work, Act 1 of Arms and the Man begins with an elaborate two paragraph description of the scene in the bedchamber. Your assignment is basically to paraphrase this...
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Arms and the Man
One of the themes is the romanticism of war. Shaw satirizes the romantic ideas of war that seem to help glorify such a grim event. Because Bernard Shaw uses a comic tone, it is important to realize...
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Arms and the Man
I had to edit down the original question into one question. I think that the line “I think we two have found the higher love" is significant for a couple of reasons. It is at the point where...
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Arms and the Man
Arms and the Man by George Bernard Shaw is set just after the Battle of Slivnitsa in the Serb-Bulgarian war during November 1885. The first act is set in the bedroom of Raina, a young Bulgarian...
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Arms and the Man
Arms and the Man by George Bernard Shaw, like many of Shaw's works, is a strongly polemical play. Shaw uses several different techniques to express his own opinions in the play. First, Shaw not...
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Arms and the Man
Hugo suggests, in a playful, poetic fashion, that butterflies are love notes written from one lover to another that somehow changed to butterflies. As far as his purpose in doing so, it is hard to...
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Arms and the Man
Raina is readying for bed in the darkness of her chamber when she sees her shutters open and close and hears ragged breathing in her room. A match is briefly lit and then put out, and a man's...
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Arms and the Man
The meeting of Raina and Captain Bluntschli drives the central plot and thematic concerns of the play. Before the meeting, we have a dialogue between Raina and her mother which serves as...
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Arms and the Man
Raina first meets Captain Bluntschli when he hides in her room. He tells her not to try calling out, for he will have no qualms in shooting her if she does so. Seeing her to be an intelligent young...
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Arms and the Man
Socialism and social equality were both important themes in the work of George Bernard Shaw, and he wrote many essays and prefaces advocating both of these causes. In the play Arms and the Man, we...
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Arms and the Man
In response to the question "Why does Bluntschli not want to die in Act 1 of George Bernard Shaw's play The Arms and the Man?", Shaw himself might respond with another question, namely: "Why would...
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Arms and the Man
The typical hero is brave, strong, and romantic, concerned with honor and glory. In Homer's epics, for example, a key motivation for the hero was "kleos" (fame) that would live on after the hero's...
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Arms and the Man
The title of Arms and the Man by George Bernard Shaw is based on the opening line of Virgil's Aeneid, Arma virumque cano, Troiae qui primus ab oris Italiam, fato profugus I sing of arms and a man...
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Arms and the Man
Arms and the Man by George Bernard Shaw was first staged on April 21, 1894 and enjoyed a successful stage run before being published in Shaw's collection Plays Pleasant in 1898. The play is...
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Arms and the Man
George Bernard Shaw's play Arms and the Man is a play about both love and war. In a sense, Shaw sees these two themes as connected, in that romantic attitudes, which glamorize war and relationships...
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Arms and the Man
The coat in Arms and the Man by George Bernard Shaw serves as a plot device. It gives Captain Bluntschli an excuse to revisit Raina to return the coat without explicitly stating that he has a...
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Arms and the Man
George Bernard Shaw was himself a pacifist and Arms and the Man is one of several anti-war plays he wrote over his long career. The main literary device Shaw uses to evoke this theme and support...
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Arms and the Man
Byronism is seen in the character of Major Saranoff, who is a shining example of Raina and her mother’s romanticized image of a hero. Sergius is often referred to as the Byronic hero or as the...
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Arms and the Man
This dichotomy really oversimplifies and misrepresents Shaw. Shaw was first and foremost a satirist whose plays tend to debunk popular misperceptions using humor and irony. Thus Arms and the Man is...
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Arms and the Man
Bluntschli says that the bet would rob Major Petkoff because Catherine is sure to be right about the whereabouts of the major's favorite coat. So, if Major Petkoff bets against both Catherine and...
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Arms and the Man
The meeting between Raina and Bluntschli is of great significance, in fact, it is correct to say it is the most significant element in Shaw's play because, without the meeting, the plot wouldn't...
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Arms and the Man
The weapon is a cloak, and the speaker objects because it does not conform to her romantic ideas about warfare.Raina Petkoff, a young Bulgarian, makes this statement to a Serbian soldier who has...
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Arms and the Man
The unprofessional act that the Man is describing is Serius' leading a "heroic" cavalry charge into a machine gun nest. A few lines down he elaborates as follows: He did it like an operatic...
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Arms and the Man
The title of play Arms and the Man by George Bernard Shaw is based on the famous opening lines of Virgil's Aeneid, Arma virumque cano, Troiae qui primus ab oris Italiam fato profugus Laviniaque...
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Arms and the Man
The title is an allusion to the first line of Virgil's Aeneid. In English, the line translates as "I sing of arms and the man." In Virgil, "the man" is, of course, Aeneas, and "arms" refers to the...
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Arms and the Man
Captain Bluntschli in Arms and the Man by George Bernard Shaw is really a stand-in for the playwright, expressing many of Shaw's own ideas and attitudes. When Captain Bluntschli first enters the...
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Arms and the Man
In Act 1 of Arms and the Man, the subject of war is mainly portrayed through the perspectives of Raina and Captain Bluntschli. While Raina is enthralled with the idealized notion of the war hero,...
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Arms and the Man
Love is explored in Arms and the Man by Shaw in two places: through war and through romance. The major romance in the play is between Raina and Sergius. Superficially, they are an ideal match....
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Arms and the Man
The real hero of the play is not the seemingly dashing Serguis, the "heroic" military leader with whom Raina initially believes she is in love. Instead, it is the mercenary soldier Bluntschli, who...
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Arms and the Man
I tend to think that Shaw's treatment of war and love is to remove the romanticism that is so strongly attached to both concept. Shaw was realistic enough to understand that society held cliched...
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Arms and the Man
Shaw uses irony to create humor in this play that shows the absurdity of war and exposes false heroism. Captain Bluntschli, the seemingly dishonorable deserter from battle, proves to be more...
