Arms and the Man Book

When Shaw first presented his Arms and the Man to British audiences in 1894, he was capping off his pet project of waking up young audiences to the necessities of social reform and a wide-awake, realistic grappling with the jingoistic attitude of the Victorian Old Guard, which now had to be discarded as Europe armed its military to the teeth.

The bloodbath of Trench Warfare was to commence in exactly twenty years' time, and Shaw was playing Casandra to Europe's sleeping Trojans.

Of course it didn't work.

But he shouted anyway from the rooftops of Doomed Troy: "sleepers, awake!"

Audiences loved it. But they couldn't see past the obvious laughs.

And they couldn't SEE themselves in young Raina, the main character, living a sleepy life of genteel idleness amid a military family and a dashing military fiancé.

But Raina would have told them all in no uncertain terms by the end of the play, that She Did it All for a very Real, Adult Love (ie, she changed her choice of husband-to-be) rather than opt for the empty glory - and resultant death and nothingness - of all that wartime Glitz and Glam inherent in her family's jingoism.

Shaw hoped that the young ladies for whom he wrote his Intelligent Woman's Guide to Socialism would discard that illusory militaristic glory in favour of his clear-seeing pacifism.

And so influence the voice of nations in order that tragedy might be averted.

But, as will always be the case, the Trojans were more enchanted by Glitz, Glam and the Free Gift of Awesomely Lifelike Wooden Horses than they were worried about hysterical dames who screamed from their watch tower.

They kept their new Baby but threw out the pessimistic Bathwater.

Just as all the young ladies loved the invincible ARMS of the time that endlessly fortified their glorious country, more than the doomed MAN beneath the glorious uniform.

Do we, as well, prefer glitz and glam to the glory of real love?

And in our turn, in our day - are we so easily swayed by our glamorous electronic diversions that we shut out the only Reality that could, Alas, have taught us real glory:

The ordinary, loving reality of a simple, unplugged, everyday life?