What is known as drama of Ideas?

How do you classify Arms and The

Man as a drama of ideas?

Drama of Ideas or the drama of social criticism in the real sense is a modern
development. A number of contemporary problems and evils are subjected to
discussion and searching examinations and criticism in these plays. Thus in it,
the structure and characterization are of subordinate importance; it ids the
discussion that counts. Ibsen and then Shaw, Galsworthy and Granville Barker
were the chief exponents of this realistic drama of ideas.
To Shaw, drama was preeminently a medium for articulating his own ideas and
philosophy. He enunciated the philosophy of life force which he sought to
disseminate through his dramas. Thus Shavian plays are the vehicles for the
transportation of ideas, however, propagandizing they may be. Shaw wanted to
cast his ideas through discussions.
Out of the discussions in the play Arms and The Man Shaw breaks the idols of
love and war. The iconoclast Shaw pulls down all false gods which men live, love
admire and adore. By a clever juxtaposition of characters and dialogues, Shaw
shatters the romantic illusions about war and war heroes Shaws message is that
war is no longer a thing of banners and glory, as the nineteenth century dramatist
saw it, but a dull and sordid affair of brutal strength and callous planning out.
The dialogues of Bluntschli, Riana and Sergius go to preach this message with
great success. Here to quote Sergius who says, War is a hollow sham like love.
One thing however be remembered that in Arms and The Man, Mr. Shaw does
not, as some imagine attack war. He is not Tolstoy an in the least. What he does is
to denounce the sentimental illusion that gathers around war. Fight if you will,
says he but for goodness sake dont strike picturesque attitudes in the limelight
about it. View it as one of the desperately irrational things of life that may,
however, in certain circumstances be a brutal necessity. Bluntschli is the very
mouth piece of the play that exposes the dreamful reality of war. There is a lot of
learning in the disillusionment of Riana and Sergius.
But this is not the whole message Shaw intends to convey through his Arms and
The Man. In the play he has taken a realistic view not only of war and heroism
but of love and marriage. He has taken a realistic view of life as a whole. He has
blown away the halo of romance that surrounds human life as a whole. His
message in this play is, therefore, the destruction not only of the conventional
conception of the heroic soldier but of the romantic view of marriage, nay, of life
as a whole. He pleads for judging everything concerning human life from a purely
realistic point of view. This is the message he conveys through the play, Arms
and The Man. The hero Bluntschli here serves the mouth piece of the author.
He is the postal of level -headedness that sees through emptiness of romantic
love and romantic heroism. He towers about all others and shatters all the pet

theories and so called high ideas, and converts Raina and Sergius to his own
views and succeeds in life because he faces facts and his no romantic illusions
about him.
Further, as all the propaganda plays go Arms and The Man lacks action and
instead of action it contains plenty of dramatic dialogues. It is not a lie if we say
the Arms and The Man Shaws a perfect combination of the elements of action
and discussion. The conversation between Raina and Captain Bluntschli, for
example in the act-I, is extremely lively and through the mouth of the chocolate
cream soldier. Shaw gives expression to his own heresies about the glories of
warfare. The fugitive soldier talks to the universality of the flaying instinct, but
his talk is not an end in itself. He argues only with a view to persuading Raina to
give him shelter and to protect him from the raids of Bulgarian soldiers. Thus
there is not a scrap of discussion for the sake of discussion. The action of the
drama require that Rainas hatred of a cowardly should be disarmed, her
romantic notions blasted and sympathy and pity aroused. As soon as this end has
been achieved, the tired soldier drops down fast asleep. He instinctively realizes
that he has become Rianas poor dear; and there is no need for further argument.