Skip to main content

Compare the relationships of Raina and Bluntschli and Raina and Sergius from the first two acts.

Despite the serious questions raised in it about the nature of war and how literature and the arts are complicit in its romanticization, Arms and the Man by George Bernard Shaw is, in terms of plot, a traditional romantic comedy. 


At the beginning of the first act, we have Catherine Petkoff articulating a traditionally romantic viewpoint of both war and love, grounded in aristocratic Bulgarian culture and the artistic tradition of Europe. Raina's engagement to Sergius is situated in that contextual framework. Raina herself expresses that she has some doubts about that ideology, but as a young provincial woman has not really been exposed to any viable alternative modes of thinking or being. 


When Captain Bluntschli enters into her room, Raina is presented with a different view of war and love and slowly begins to realize that her engagement to Sergius is based on an illusion. We gradually see that Sergius too, in his relationship to Raina is simply filling out an externally created role rather than following his own heart. He does not wish simply to be the dashing, handsome soldier of the portrait and understands that Raina is engaged to an illusion, not to his real self.


The relationship between Captain Bluntschli and Raina is grounded not in illusion but in reality. Raina has seen Captain Bluntschli exhausted, frightened, and hungry and Captain Bluntschli has seen Raina in her private bedroom in her night clothes, i.e. her private rather than public self. Thus their relationship is founded in authenticity rather than imagination and convention. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Is there a word/phrase for "unperformant"?

As a software engineer, I need to sometimes describe a piece of code as something that lacks performance or was not written with performance in mind. Example: This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. Based on my Google searches, this isn't a real word. What is the correct way to describe this? EDIT My usage of "performance" here is in regard to speed and efficiency. For example, the better the performance of code the faster the application runs. My question and example target the negative definition, which is in reference to preventing inefficient coding practices. Answer This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. In my opinion, reads more easily as: This coding style leads to unmaintainable and poorly performing code. The key to well-written documentation and reports lies in ease of understanding. Adding poorly understood words such as performant decreases that ease. In addressing the use of such a poorly ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Is 'efficate' a word in English?

I routinely hear the word "efficate" being used. For example, "The most powerful way to efficate a change in the system is to participate." I do not find entries for this word in common English dictionaries, but I do not have an unabridged dictionary. I have checked the OED (I'm not sure if it is considered unabridged), and it has no entry for "efficate". It does have an entry for "efficiate", which is used in the same way. Wordnik has an entry for "efficate" with over 1800 hits, thus providing some evidence for the frequency of use. I personally like the word and find the meaning very clear and obvious when others use it. If it's not currently an "officially documented" word, perhaps its continued use will result in it being better documented.
Post a Comment
Read more