Arms and the Man(1894), having received numerous revivals over the years, is one of them. Being the first of Shaw’s “pleasant” plays, it was labeled as an anti-romantic comedy. Arms and the Man was written at a time when people in England were fond of an exaggerated form of romanticism in comedies. The term “anti-romantic comedy” succeeds in expressing a protest against the much exalted conception of love and war that people have treasured for so long. In this play Shaw has represented love and war from an anti-romantic position in order to destroy the romantic notions of love and war.

For centuries, valiance in war was considered to be one of the greatest distinctions that a man can achieve. People were convinced that soldiers go in a war obsessed with sense of patriotism and heroism. However, Shaw unfolds with cruel disposition of war. Indeed, in every line, the playwright ridicules the romantic notions about war that praise this gruesome business. If there were no comic dialogues, the audience would more easily see that they are being presented with a soldier who has escaped from a dreadful battle after three days of being under fire. He is worn out, starving, and being pursued. Late in the comedy, the author introduces a grisly report on the death of the man who revealed Bluntschli’s secret about hiding in Raina’s bedroom. This story of a man, who was shot in the hip and then burned to death, can be called neither comic nor heroic. When Raina shows how horrified she is, Sergius says, “And how ridiculous! Oh, war! War! The dream of patriots and heroes! A fraud, Bluntschli, a hollow sham.” The critics used this description to prove that Shaw was a baser trying to shatter the heroic concept. That a soldier would prefer chocolate to cartridges in his belt was considered absurd by critics, as well as by Raina:

THE MAN: I’ve no ammunition. What use are cartridges in battle? I always carry chocolate instead; and I finished the last cake of that hours ago.

RAINA: [outraged in her most cherished ideals of manhood] Chocolate! Do you stuff your pockets with sweets-like a schoolboy-even in the field?

Raina, influenced by her romantic conception of heroism, at first treats Bluntschli with ridicule. She thinks as he was afraid to die, he escaped from the field. Being an experienced soldier, Bluntschli explains her that everybody is afraid to die, and that no soldier should sacrifice his life for a false conviction in heroism:

Raina: Some soldiers are afraid to die.
The Man: All of them…It is our duty to live as long as we can.

The romantic ideal of war as a glorious opportunity for a man to display bravery and honor is also driven away when Sergius admits that his heroic cavalry charge that won the battle was the wrong thing to do. His glorious deed does not get him his promotion and Sergius learns the following truth:

“Soldiering, my dear madam, is the coward’s art of attacking mercilessly when you are strong, and keeping out of harm’s way when you are weak.”

It should also be noted that Catherine is discontented with a peace treaty because of her unrealistic vision of glorious war. In her opinion, there must be a crushing rout of the enemy followed by celebrations of a heroic victory. The message Shaw wants to bring here is that there can be peaceful alternatives to continual fighting.

However, Arms and the Manwas created by Shaw not only to reveal the false romantic ideas of war. It was also supposed to sweepaway deeply-rooted notions of romantic love. In this anti-romantic comedy, Raina and Sergius are together for all the wrong reasons: because their social status requires a mate from the same social level; and because Sergius plays the role of the heroic type Raina has always been taught to admire, and she plays the role that Sergius expects from a woman of her status. However, neither of them is showing his/her real self, and their affection is based on outward appearances, but not on the true person beneath the facade. They are both playing the game of romance according to their idealized standards for courtship rather than according to their inner feelings. Raina has fallen in love with her courageous army officer who is so handsome in his uniform. Forced by Bluntschli and Louka to examine their true feelings, Raina and Sergius find out that they have the courage and desire to follow their hearts instead of trying to meet social expectations. They both must face the fact that their ideals about love are false. Luckily, Raina and Sergius are actually liberated by this knowledge to seek their true loves.

Arms and the Mandoes not simply negate romance. By attaching to well-tried dramatic situations an unconventional set of values and claims, Shaw achieves a renewal of a typical romance structure. Instead of the conventional romance, it offers the romance of reality, of the discovery of true feeling. It is in terms such as these that the relations between Raina and Bluntschli are developed in the comedy. Their romantic intimacy increases as Raina’s romantic attitudes are progressively thrown away:

BLUNTSCHLI:… When you strike that noble attitude and speak in that thrilling voice, I admire you; but I find it impossible to believe a single word you say…

RAINA: [wonderingly] Do you know, you are the first man I ever met who did not take me seriously?

BLUNTSCHLI: You mean, dont you, that I am the first man that has ever taken you quite seriously?

RAINA: Yes: I suppose I do mean that. [Cosily, quite at her ease with him] How strange it is to be talked to in such a way!

Shaw did not adhere to the melodramatic stereotype of appealing to pity or sympathy. On the contrary, he magnified the pathos and made sudden changes from a lofty to an ordinary style.Thus, Shaw inverts the conventions of romance and inserts critical commentaries into the ingenious funny lines of his play. Romance does play a significant role in Arms and the Man, but Shaw skillfully turns the tables by having the characters abandon their romantic ideals.