1. What is the source and irony of the title of this play? 2. While Shaw uses many elements of farce, this is still called a “drama of ideas.” Discuss Shaw’s use of farce to demonstrate some of his ideas. 3. What is meant by the subtitle “An Anti-Romantic Comedy”? […]
Read more Study Help Essay QuestionsGeorge Bernard Shaw Biography
It is with good reason that Archibald Henderson, official biographer of his subject, entitled his work George Bernard Shaw: Man of the Century. Well before his death at the age of ninety-four, this famous dramatist and critic had become an institution. Among the literate, no set of initials were more […]
Read more George Bernard Shaw BiographyCharacter Analysis Sergius Saranoff
Sergius is the epitome of what every romantic hero should be: He is dashing, swashbuckling, devastatingly handsome, idealistic, wealthy, aristocratic, brave, and the acclaimed hero of a recent crushing victory in a recent cavalry raid which he led. He is possessed of only the loftiest and most noble ideals concerning […]
Read more Character Analysis Sergius SaranoffCharacter Analysis Captain Bluntschli
Captain Bluntschli is a thirty-four-year-old realist who sees through the absurd romanticism of war. Furthermore, unlike the aristocratic volunteers who are untrained, amateurish idealists, Captain Bluntschli is a professional soldier, trained in waging a war in a highly efficient, businesslike manner. These methods allow Sergius to refer to his ability […]
Read more Character Analysis Captain BluntschliCharacter Analysis Raina Petkoff
Raina is one of Shaw’s most delightful heroines from his early plays. In the opening scenes of the play, she is presented as being a romantically idealistic person in love with the noble ideal of war and love; yet, she is also aware that she is playing a game, that […]
Read more Character Analysis Raina PetkoffSummary and Analysis Act III
Summary This act shifts to the Petkoffs’ library, a setting which Shaw uses to let us know that this is a very poor excuse for a library; it consists of only a single room with a single shelf of old worn-out paper-covered novels; the rest of the room is more […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Act IIISummary and Analysis Act II
Summary Some four months have passed since the first act, and a peace treaty has just been signed. The setting for this act is in Major Petkoff’s garden. Louka is standing onstage in a disrespectful attitude, smoking a cigarette and talking to Nicola, a middle-aged servant who has “the complacency […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Act IISummary and Analysis Act I
Summary The play opens at night in a lady’s bedchamber in a small Bulgarian town in 1885, the year of the Serbo-Bulgarian war. The room is decorated in the worst possible taste, a taste reflected in the mistress’ (Catherine Petkoff’s) desire to seem as cultured and as Viennese as possible. […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Act ISummary and Analysis Preface
Unlike Pygmalion or many of Shaw’s other plays, there is no actual, separate preface to this particular play. However, there was a preface to the original volume of plays which contains this play and three others: The Pleasant Plays, 1898, revised in 1921. As Shaw noted elsewhere, a preface seldom […]
Read more Summary and Analysis PrefaceCharacter List
Captain Bluntschli A professional soldier from Switzerland who is serving in the Serbian army. He is thirty-four years old, and he is totally realistic about the stupidity of war. Raina Petkoff The romantic idealist of twenty-three who views war in terms of noble and heroic deeds. Sergius Saranoff The extremely […]
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