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Character of Bluntschli
Q.Sketch the character of Bluntschli.
➡️Shaw's Arms and the Man is an anti romantic comedy and as the subtitle promises.It presents an anti romantic hero in a comic manner. 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. And consequently, heroism, patriotism, martyrdom, such phrases are foreign to his nature. Shaw makes his hero a commercial soldier who fights for money. These methods allow Sergius to refer to his ability to wage a war as being low class Commercialism, devoid of any honor and nobility. Bluntschli would agree with this appraisal since he sees nothing romantic about the violent and senseless slaughter of human beings, even though it is his profession.
Being a professional soldier, he adopts a practical and wise view.His name is a combination of Blunt, with the ending, which in Swiss means "sweet" or "endearing" or "lovable".Given the choice of being killed or saving his life by climbing up a balcony and into a lady's bedroom, he chooses unheroically not to be killed. Practically, he knows that a dead professional soldier is of no value to anyone; thus, he saves his life by the most expedient method available-he hides in a lady's bedchamber. Likewise, given the choice of killing someone or of not going hungry, he chooses to eat rather than to kill; thus, he carries chocolates rather than cartridges, a highly unromantic but very practical thing to do. He tells Raina that "it is our (soldier) duty to live as long as we can". He even snatches Raina's cloak to get saved by her. To die in war may be a moment's glory, but Bluntschli knows like Owen 'What passing bells for these who die as cattle?"(Anthem for Doomed Youth)
When Bluntschli first hears of Sergius' cavalry charge, he refuses to view Sergius' actions in any way except as a foolhardy display of false heroics. He mocks at the charge as "Don Quixote" charging the windmills. He also compares Sergius with an "operatic tenor" with handsome appearance. Thus he gradually disillusions Raina of the false romance of war and heroism. Later, in reply of Sergius' challenge to a duel, he curtly answers back "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 are only an amateur; you think fighting is an amusement". When Sergius challenges his spirit of lighting, he instantly replies "If I go, I shall take a machine gun". He also supports Louka for her eavesdropping and praises Nicola for his extreme professionalism in denying Louka's hand. Head must rule over heart and so only he can quickly send the cavalry regiment to Philippolis.
But Bluntschli is not only a blunt practical thinking man; he has a deep feeling for tender emotion and romance. He ridicules Raina's "noble attitude and thrilling voice", yet declares himself to be her "infatuated admirer". In other words, he disillusions Raina's romance of war and marriage, but also accepts her beauty and charm. Shaw does not create a dry professional man who is too calculative to be loved. (So Bluntschli ultimately confesses his "incurably romantic disposition". He candidly confesses that he has joined war by the romance of adventure; even climbed to Raina's room in sheer romantic dream to meet his dream girl; and now he has reached Petkoff's house not to return the coat, but to have a look at beautiful Raina whom he saw in candlelight in her bedroom in her ordinary night dress. When Raina disregards his richness, he promptly reminds her "I appealed to you as a fugitive, a beggar and a starving man. You accepted me. You gave me your hand to kiss, your bed to sleep in, your roof to shelter me." Raina similarly takes him not as the emperor of Switzerland, but as her "chocolate cream soldier'.
Thus Shaw very effectively brings to us "The Man" who destroys all rusty customs and notions to establish newer and better ones. In Major Barbara, Shaw comments through his hero Undershaft, "That is what is wrong with the world at present. It scraps its obsolete steam engines and dynamos; but it wont scrap its old prejudices and its old moralities and its old religions and its old political constitutions". Bluntschli also shuns the age old romantic views of war and patriotism, of higher love and hypocrisy, and proves that the arms of modern man are not the weapons of war but intellect and only a practical professional attitude to life can elevate a man to the status of superman.
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