Question

Give a vivid descriptions of the interaction between Raina and the fugitive in the first Act. How are their views different from each other?

Answer 1

Beginning on a romantic note, Shaw's 'Arms and the Man' proceeds the romantic notions of love, war and soldiering going for a toss. Raina, who is under romantic illusions of a war hero, gets a glimpse of reality when she meets a prosaic soldier who happens to hide in her room. The conversation between the two brings out conflicting ideas.
When Raina is reading, she hears some sound and sees a man in a Serbian coat threatening her with a pistol. He is in a terrible condition. There's blood all over him. When Raina disdainfully says some soldiers are afraid to die, the man replies all soldiers are afraid to die. Moreover, it is the duty of every soldier to live as long as possible and kill as many as possible. This is diametrically opposite to Raina's belief that all soldiers are heroes who prefer to die valiantly in the battlefield. Raina feels revolted when the man tries to blackmail her by not giving her cloak, she replies that it is not a gentleman's weapon. Then he says that it is good enough, if it saves him from sure death. Raina is hardly able to believe that even a Serbian officer can be so cynically and selfishly unchivalrous.
When gunshots are heard, Rain offers to help him by making him hide behind the curtains and he yields, again going against our conception of a valiant soldier. He lays he has half a chance if Raina keeps her head, as nine out of ten soldiers are born fools. His observation is proved true as the young Bulgarian Captain fails to notice the pistol on the Ottoman. He believes Raina and goes away from the room.
We come to know that the man is not a coward as he promises to fight like a demon, if he is cornered. Actually it makes sense as discretion is the better part of valour. There's no point in getting slaughtered if it is not required.
Raina is outraged as everything he says is against her cherished ideals of manhood.
The man sheepishly tells her that there is no ammunition in his pistol. He shocks her by saying that it is food not ammunition that is needed in a battle. 'What use are cartridges in battle? I always carry chocolate instead.'
The man further shocks the girl when he says that continuously being in the battlefield has made him as nervous as a mouse and she has to only scold him to see him crying like a school boy. When she says Bulgarian soldiers are not so coward, the man says , "Oh, yes, they are." There are only two sorts of soldiers: old ones and young ones. The young ones are so unprofessional like the Bulgarian army that defeated the Serbs; they displayed 'Sheer ignorance of the art of war, nothing else.' It was so unprofessional to throw a regiment of cavalry on a battery of machine guns. 'I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw it.'
The man describes the leader of the attack as a handsome hem like figure, 'shouting a war- cry and charging like Don Quixote at the windmills.' The Serbians nearly burst with laughter at him; but when they were told that they had the wrong cartridges, they laughed. The Major was thinking he'd done the cleverest thing ever known, but the fugetice strongly believes the Major ought to be court martialled for taking the regiment to the brink of suicide.
Thus, all things considered as heroic suffer a setback for Raina. Shaw's intention in the play is to throw light on what soldiering is all about. He emphasizes on the hunger, lack of sleep and physical discomfort faced by a soldier. He also emphasizes that death is not the ultimate glory, but what that matters is surviving to fight again.