Bring out the dramatic significance of the Chocolate Cream Soldier

Bring out the dramatic significance of the Chocolate Cream Soldier episode in the ‘Arms and the Man’

Attempt an essay on the role of Chocolate Cream Soldier in the development of the plot of ‘Arms and the Man.’

Ans.

“I am the Chocolate Cream Soldier. The gracious young lady saved my life by giving me chocolate creams when I was starving…… Thus, says captain Bluntschli and gives rest to all the doubts that may come to the mind of anybody regarding the identity of the Chocolate Cream Soldier. A man enters the bedroom of Raina by opening the shutters from outside. This man, a Swiss native at present fighting with the Serbs is being chased by the Bulgarian cavalry. Raina, Petkoff the young romantic heroine of the play hides the fugitive behind the curtains and saves his life because she is driven by an inexplicable sense of pity and compassion. After the soldiers searching for the man depart, the Swiss fugitive shocks Raina by saying, “I’ve no ammunition. What use are cartridges in battle ? I always carry chocolate instead, and I finished the last cake of that hours ago………. I wish I had some now.” At this request Raina feels disgusted, she was confronted with a soldier, looking nervous and haggard on the point of starvation and asking for chocolate creams just like a school going boy. She forms a very poor opinion about the man. She considers him soft and unheroic….. She is dumbfounded to hear the man when he says that he would start crying if Raina just scolded him. He himself admits, “I’m as nervous as a mouse.” Seeing him longing for sleep. pining for a few more chocolates Raina comes to the conclusion that he is really as soft as chocolate creams without any hardness or harshness expected of a soldier. She calls him poor darling” and when he leaves the house in the morning, wearing the old coat of Major Petkoff, she very impulsively slips her photograph into the pocket of the coat with the inscription-“Raina, to her Chocolate Cream Soldier: A souvenir.”

In Act II of the play Bluntschli comes back to return the coat and Raina sees him. She gets so much surprised that she cries out-“Oh ! the Chocolate Cream Soldier !” Both Sergius and Major Petkoff are amazed but Raina saves the situation by displaying a remarkable presence of mind. “How silly of me !” she says: “I made a beautiful ornament for the ice pudding; and that stupid Nicola has just put down a pile of plates on it and spoilt it.” Then very mischievously she tells Bluntschli. “I hope you didn’t think that you were the Chocolate Cream Soldier. Captain Bluntschli.” The Swiss is amused and says jovially, “I assure you I did. (stealing a whimsical glance at her) your explanation was a relief.” A bit later, however, a sort of crisis occurs when Bluntschli says that he never got the photo and it must still be there in the pocket of Major Petkoff’s coat. Major Petkoff has already seen the photo and when. he finds it missing now, his suspicions gets aroused. At first he thinks that the photograph was meant for Sergius. When he vehemently denies it and all are confused, Captain Bluntschli stands up and says that the epithet Chocolate Cream Soldier was meant for him.

On examining it, however, one feels that the name befits Sergius more than it does Bluntschli. The epithet is intended to be a ridicule. It conveys the sense that the person for whom it is meant is not at all experienced in military affairs possesses no soldier like qualities, does not have a strong personality and needs motherly affection and childlike nourishment. Bluntschli is certainly a very highly experienced and expert military person. He has been working in the capacity of a professional soldier for the last fifteen years. He is really competent and solves the problem of dispatching the three regiments to Phillippopolis within no time. This was a problem which was definitely beyond Petkoff and Sergius both; Bluntschli is brave, courageous and strong. He no doubt, behaves nervously in the first Act but that is because, as he himself says, he was under fire for three days, “I can. stand two days without shewing it much; but no man can stand three days.” If no man can stand three days, is it fair to blame Bluntschli because he could not. Once he has overcome his fatigue, he becomes a shrewd and powerful person who befools Sergius and Petkoff in the exchange of prisoners and worn out charges. The following comment made by Sergius (though satirically) is in reality absolutely appropriate-“Ah, he was a Soldier: every inch a soldier.” For such a character the epithet of Chocolate Cream Soldier does not sound apt. It applies more to Sergius, who lacks skill and experience in warfare and commits blunders. He makes the cavalry charge “like an operatic tenor…shouting his war-cry and charging like Don Quixote ate windmills.” Bluntschli once again says, “And there was Don Quixou flourishing like a drum major, thinking he’d done the cleverest thing ever known whereas he ought to be court-martialled for it.” He is saved merely because the Serbian army had been by mistake, supplied the wrong kind of ammunition. Later when Catherine talks about Sergius promotion and he is denied the promotion Sergius sulks like a and sends in his resignation. It is he who needs motherly care. Raina understands this fact of his personality very well and tells her mother, “Oh, I know Sergius is your pet.” Keeping in mind these instances, it seems fair and justified to say that the name should have been used for Sergius rather than for Bluntschli.

The Chocolate Cream Soldier has a great dramatic significance. The main purpose behind the play was to prove the hollowness of the romantic ideas about war and love. This purpose is served very well by the episode under consideration and vividly brings out the truth that chocolate (symbolizing all kinds of food) is as necessary to an army as cartridges. The episode also exposes the hollowness of the romantic notions of love because it very subtly indicates towards a change in Raina’s affections. Raina who earlier professed that her betrothed is just as splendid and noble as he looks ! gives a token of love with such an inscription, to a stranger. Even her father feels shocked and says. “Do you (Sergius) mean to tell me that Raina sends things like that to other men ?” When Raina talks in a noble way about higher love” and says to Sergius, “I think we two have found the higher love. When I think of you, I feel that could never do a base deed or think an ignoble thought.” She also professes that Sergius has never been absent from her thoughts for a moment. The readers and spectators who are aware of her adventure with the nocturnal intruder will definitely laugh and wonder at the worthlessness of the whole declaration.

In the plot-line of the play this episode brings about complication and in Act II it threatens a premature disclosure and nearly leads to one. It also throws a lot of light on different characters of the play. Raina’s impulsive nature, Bluntschli’s outspokenness and shrewdness. Sergius’s romantic foolhardiness, Catherine’s capacity to mould the situation in her favour by telling lies, Nicola’s servile attitude and dedication obtuseness of Major Petkoff etc. are all revealed by the episode. It also serves as a comic element in the play and a device to bring to knowledge of everyone Raina’s love at first sight for Bluntschli. When towards the end Bluntschli asks Raina to whom did she gives her hand to kiss, her bed to sleep in and her roof to shelter. Raina shyly confesses. “To my Chocolate Cream Soldier”. Thus, the love that began with chocolate creams reaches its pinnacle on the same note and gives a sort of unity to the whole story.