Idealism and Realism in George Bernard Shaw’s Arms and the Man

Abstract

Generally, George Bernard Shaw defines literature as the mirror of the society. He presents his looking-glass by portraying the good and bad ideas of his society. He is the playwright who attached the romanticism through the naturalism movement that started at the middle of the 19th century to replace romanticism. This research aims to reveal the private follies of the characters in George Bernard Shaw’s Arms and the Man, in terms of their idealism and realism in war and love. This play is a satire on the foolishness of glorifying war, as well as on idealistic notions of love. Through it, Shaw tries to reflect the reality of his period of time and society. He harshly criticizes the notion of war because of its terrible consequences such as bloodshed, destruction and poverty. About love, he emphasizes that it is important to follow ones heart in marriage not social status or appearances. The methodology of the study is analytical. In conclusion, the results show that Shaw’s aims to reform society’s conventional behavior to rescue it from fake changing of characters idealism notions of war and love at the end of the play achieved idealism to become more realism, especially that relate to marriage.