Shaw's anti-romantic comedy Arms and the Man

... I'll publish, right or wrong: Fools are my theme, let satire be my song. Arms and the man is an anti-romantic comedy and it is Shaw's satire at human folly and wickedness. The aim of satire is corrective. A satirist laughs at individual or social follies, wickedness and vice and his aim is not to cause pain but to eradicate the particular folly or wickedness. Shaw was a professional social reformist and in Arms and the man he has satirized the romantic ideals of life, more specifically the romantic view of war, soldiering and romantic love. Love and war are two concerns which are often regarded as societal ideals. George Bernard Shaw's Arms and the Man is a pleasant and humorous attack on both. Shaw uses humor as a vehicle of thought thus tending to obscure his subtle satire on war and the genteel classes and his exploration of

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