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What is the central theme of the play 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 his anti-war position is satire, ridiculing the ways people are misled into supporting wars.


The particular target of this satire is the Romantic artistic portrayal of war as magnificent and heroic. A secondary theme is equally romantic and unrealistic understandings of love. Shaw contrasts the ideals of love and war found in Romantic poetry and opera with their actual realities. The traditionally heroic Sergius is not only contrasted with the pragmatic Swiss mercenary but eventually shown to have his own doubts about the relationship of his image to his own inner feelings.


In the matter of love, the traditionally good match of the heroic soldier and the charming young lady luckily doesn't happen, for as Shaw shows us, it would have been a mismatch. Instead, true love develops as men reveal their weaknesses and search for true compatibility and women (Raina and Louka) are placed in roles where they can show strength and intelligence, characteristics far better as grounds for relationships than the Romantic ideal of the heroine who is constantly in need of rescue.

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