Do you agree that Sergius is no contrast to Bluntschli ?

Comment that if Bluntschli is a thorough going realist, Sergius is a complete Romantic fool.

Ans.

In the play Arms and the Man‘ shaw has tilted against war. romantic soldiering and romantic notions of higher love. He wants us to realize that war is not an opportunity to display one’s courage and bravery, to unfurl banners and win glory. It is no longer such a thing as Tamburlaine or Othello or Sir Walter Scott saw it. In today’s world it has become a dull. sordid affair of brute strength and callous planning. Similarly the high idealism of romantic love is no longer possible. Marriage is no doubt desirable and good but it has also become wrapped in romantic illusions just like war and this has led to many an unhappy marriage in the world. To present such a conflict between the old conventions and the present day conditions. he has employed the technique of contrast. He makes one character stand for one ideas and another for another. By making them foil to each other he succeeds in making his point absolutely clear.

In Arms and the Man’ the Bulgarian Major Sergius Saranoff may be taken as the representative of the outworn conventions and captain Bluntschli, the Swiss matter of fact, down to earth warrior is the symbol of the present day conditions.

(1) Their attitudes towards War: Sergius’s attitude towards war is essentially romantic. He believes that men fight because they are heroes and that the soldier who takes the biggest risks wins the greatest glory and is the greatest hero. He, therefore, “defied our Russian commanders acted without orders-led a charge on his own responsibility, headed it himself, was the first man to sweep through their guns.” He acts like a splendid gallant warrior or with his swords and eyes flashing, thunders down like an avalanche and scatters the wretched serbs and their dandified Austrian officers like chaff. He feels upset when his officers consider it to be an unprofessional deed and refuse to grant him promotion. “I won the battle the wrong way when our worthy Russian generals were losing it the right way.” The strategic part of the modern warfare is interpreted by him as cowardice. He belongs to the era when people gave equal chance to the enemy and made a fair stand up fight of it. “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. That is the whole secret of successful fighting. Get your enemy at a disadvantage; and never, on any account, fight him on equal terms. A soldier, according to him, should not care for survival. He talks very sarcastically about Bluntschli because he ran for his life. “He (Bluntschli)”, says Sergius, was serving in the very battery I so unprofessionally charged. Being a thorough soldier, he ran away like the rest of them, with our cavalry at his heels……” A bit earlier also he satirized the shrewdness of the Swiss soldier, “Ah, he was a soldier every inch a soldier ! If only I had bought the horses for my regiment instead of foolishly leading it into danger. I should have been a field-marshal now!” Sergius went for fighting driven by patriotic love “like a knight in a tournament with his lady looking down at him.”

His counterpart Bluntschli, however, has no such emotions or sentiments. He is not guided by any patriotism or love of glory or any other such notion. He is fighting on the side of Serbs but is a Swiss by nationality. The only consideration in his mind is money. After all he has been a mercenary for the last fifteen years. “I am a swiss”, he tells Raina, “fighting merely as a professional soldier. I joined the Serbs because they came first on the road from Switzerland.” For him running away from the battlefield to save one’s life is no cowardice. He confesses frankly, “I’m as nervous as a mouse.” He has no hesitation in admitting that he is almost on the point of tears because he has been under fire for three days and these days have left their mark on his psyche. He would start weeping if Raina only scolds him. “I don’t intend to get killed if I can help it.” he says. He frankly accepts that he is afraid of dying “It is our duty to live as long as we can. For the sake of saving his life he does not hesitate even to use Raina’s cloak as a weapon. When Raina accuses him. “It is not the weapon of gentleman”, he retorts “It is good enough for a man with only you to stand between him and death.” The cavalry charge, of which Sergius is so proud, was only an act of stupidity according to him. “Nine soldiers out of ten are fools” in his mind Describing the cavalry charge he says that its leader rode” like an operatic tenor……with flashing eyes and lovely moustache…..thinking he’d done the cleverest thing ever known, whereas he ought to be court-martialled for it. Of all the fools ever let loose on a field of battle, that man must be the very maddest. He and his regiment simply committed suicide or they would have committed suicide, the man goes onto say, only the opposite side had no ammunition left and so was not in a position to repel the charge. He compares Sergius to Don Quixote, flourishing like a drum major, charging at the windmills. He shocks Raina when he tells her that instead of ammunition he carries chocolate in his cartridge cases, having found that food is more useful in battle than bullets. According to him there are only two types of soldiers in the world the old ones and the new ones and “You can always tell an old soldier by the inside of his holsters and cartridge boxes. The young ones carry pistols and cartridges: the old ones, grub…… You can tell the young ones by their wildness and their slashing. The old ones come bunched up under the number one guard: they know that they are mere projectiles and that its no use trying to fight. The wounds are mostly broken knees. from the horses cannoning together.” The difference between the Bulgarians and the Swiss soldier’s attitudes about war and fighting is put very aptly into words by Bluntschli himself. “I’m a professional soldier; I fight when I have to and am very glad to get out of it when I haven’t to. You’re only an amateur. You think fighting is an amusement.”

(2) Their attitudes towards Love: As Sergius lives in a world of romantic illusions about war, so he does about love too. Marriage according to him. is the mating of a beautiful heroine and a handsome hero in a lifelong romantic dream. He may be attracted towards the physical charms of Louka but cannot think of marrying her because perhaps due to her social status she does not fit into his concept of a romantic heroic. He calls himself apostle of ‘higher love’. addresses his beloved Raina as “My queen”, “My lady and my saint.” gives all the credit of his heroic deeds to her and professes to be a worshipper of the lady. But as soon as her back is turned he flirts with Louka. He may have a trivial affair with the maid servant but feels disgusted to even think that Raina is having an affair with Some unknown person. He tells Louka “You know that I love another woman, a woman as high above you as heaven is above earth.” The thought that Raina may be flirting with somebody behind his back is unbearable to him. “Do you think I believe that she- she ! whose worst thoughts are higher than your best ones, is capable, of trifling with another man behind my back?” He gets so much depressed that he does not know what to do or say in such a situation. “Damnation! Oh Damnation! Mockery! Mockery everywhere! everything I think is mocked by everything I do…..coward ! liar! fool! shall I kill myself like a man, or live or pretend to laugh at myself” He decides to kill Bluntschli and immediately goes to challenge him for a duel. Even his consent to marry Louka is given in a highly romantic manner. Louka challenges his bravery calls him a coward and makes him promise “If I loved you and I were the Czar himself, I would set you on the throne by my side….. If I choose to love you, I dare, marry you, inspite of all Bulgaria. If these hands ever touch, you again, they shall touch my affianced bride.”

Bluntschli on the contrary, is realistic not only in his attitude towards war but also in his attitude towards love. He is definitely attracted towards Raina and as he himself confesses later on, comes to return the coat himself only to catch a glimpse of Miss Petkoff again. But he keeps his feelings under control. It is he who requests Raina to go and break the news of his presence in the room to her mother. He claims to be her infatuated admirer but does not hesitate to expose her artificially noble attitude. He considers himself to be unworthy of Raina-“look at the young lady and look at me. She, rich, young, beautiful, with her imagination full of fairy princes and noble natures and cavalry charges and goodness knows what! And I, a commonplace Swiss soldier who hardly knows what a decent life is after fifteen years of barracks and battles: a vagabond……… Do you suppose I am the sort of fellow a young girl falls in love with? Why, look at our ages! I’m thirty four. I don’t suppose the young lady is much over seventeen……. It is only when he comes to know that Raina is twenty three and free to marry him because her fiance has now decided to marry Louka instead that he offers to become a suitor for her in place of Major Saranoff retired. Raina’s earlier engagement and relationship with Sergius does not perturb him at all. He has learnt to live in present. Immediately after getting engaged to Raina, he decides to leave for Switzerland because for him work will always have the upper hand.

(3) Sentimentalism and Idealism Vs. Practicality and Realism: Actually the contrast between Sergius and Bluntschli is the contrast between sentimentalism and practical outlook. Actually Bluntschli’s very angle of vision and his conception of humanity are quite different from those of Sergius. The Swiss is definitely more sane, more well balanced, more critical, more sound in all his judgements and actions. Bluntschli suffers from no jaundiced vision, no illusion, no dream. Sergius, on the other hand, has been greatly influenced by the civilization of the West and as a result has become an incorrigible egotist and a dreamer of dreams. Bluntschli calls himself a man having an incurably romantic disposition but he always keeps his romanticism under control. He comes back to have a glimpse of Raina but does not express his love until he is sure that Raina also loves him and is a mature girl in a position to marry him. He becomes a soldier instead of joining his father’s business but when he receives the news of his father’s demise he immediately decides to return to Switzerland to look after his father’s hotels. Actually Bluntschli is always well-balanced between two extremes-emotion and reason, sentiment and thought, impulse and determination, foresight and insight, conventionality and naturalness, courage and foolhardiness, intellect and instinct – due to all of which he is an enigma to the casual and superficial observers like Sergius. He arranges for the dispatch of the regiments with dexterity while Sergius and also Major Petkoff found the problem a knotty one beyond their brains. Nothing surprises him. Everything and every action is a possibility in his opinion. Louka’s eavesdropping may infuriate Sergius but it will never do so the Swiss. The Bulgarian may talk with arrogance and swagger and utter words like “I never withdraw.” “I never apologize” but Bluntschli will never go such an extreme as may force him to chew his words back. It is possible for Sergius to call Raina “My queen” or “My Saint” at one time and “tiger cat” at another. He calls Louka “a provoking witch and” an abominable little clod of common clay with the soul of a servant but later agrees to marry her despite the whole of Bulgaria such an extremist behaviour is not Bluntschli’s cup of tea. In Arms and the Man says S. C. Sen Gupta, the hero captain, Bluntschli is a soldier with an incurably romantic disposition but he never forgets that discretion is the better part of valour. His common sense is a refreshing contrast to the reckless heroism of Sergius.

(4) Their Physical Appearance: The Bulgarian and the Swiss are different from each other in their physical appearances too. Bluntschli has been described as a man of middling stature and undistinguished appearance with strong neck and shoulders, roundish obstinate looking head covered with short crisp bronze curls, clear quick eyes and good brows and mouth, hopelessly prosaic soldier like carriage and energetic manner……. “In physical appearance this ordinary looking Swiss stands nowhere in front of Sergius who is described as “a tall romantically handsome man with the physical hardihood, the high spirit and the susceptible imagination of an untamed mountaineer. But his remarkable personal distinction is of a characteristically civilized type. The ridges of his eyebrows curving with an interrogative twist round the projections at the outer corners, his jealously observant eye; his nose, thin, keen and apprehensive in spite of the pugnacious high bridge and large nostril, his assertive chin would not be out of place in a Parisian saloon……” The fact that instead of this extremely good looking ornamental man Raina prefers to marry the plain Bluntschli serves Shaw’s purpose of mocking at the stupid romanticism really well.

In the end one can do no better than sum up the contrast between these two major characters in the words of S. C. Gupta, “Sergius is too much of a fool even to serve as a servant to the brilliant captain Bluntschli.”