Dr. Sayyed Rahim Moosavinia, Shahid Chamran University of Ahvaz
Mina Etemadnejad, MA in English literature, Shahid Chamran University of Ahvaz
Abstract
As the first play which brought George Bernard Shaw fame and critical acclaim, Arms and the Man is concerned with issues of war and marriage as seen by two opposing systems of thought, characterized in Petkoff family and Captain Bluntschli. While the Petkoffs are highly idealistic about war, Bluntschli is very realistic about this phenomenon. For the Petkoff family, war is equal to altruism and honor, while Bluntschli holds that it is an endeavor to keep one’s life and to kill others. Such ideological honor is so great in the minds of the Petkoff family that it is influential in their daughter’s marriage. They believe that their daughter should marry a man who is a hero in war and who holds a military rank. All through the play, all these ideological viewpoints are attacked by Bluntschli’s realistic reactions. Such a confrontation paves the way for an Althusserian reading of the play. Louis Althusser argues that ideological discourses take individuals away from a true understanding of their situations, while scientific discourses, as practices by Marxian approaches, provide them with realistic understanding of their surroundings. It seems all through the play, the responsibility of presenting scientific discourse is on the shoulder of Captain Bluntschli. To discuss this issue, the present study identifies such ISAs as family, cultural, and political in the play to see the dissemination and workings of ideological discourses in the play and how they are confronted and challenged by scientific discourses.
Key terms: “Louis Althusser,” “George Bernard Shaw,” “Ideological State Apparatuses,” “Scientific Discourse,” “Ideological Discourse”
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Introduction
As a prominent dramatist, George Bernard Shaw brought such various notions as gender, marriage, life force, war, and socialism at the center of his satire. The “theater of ideas” is the description his works are nowadays credited with. In such as a theater, Shaw tries to investigate, question, and challenge such matters as gender equality, gender discrimination, socioeconomic problems, the effects of poverty, philosophical notions, as well as war and heroism. One of the characteristics of Shaw’s satire appears in the way he challenges illusory ideas and represents them in a realistic way. Since such controversial issues as war, gender discrimination, gender equality, and socioeconomic are politically stricken subjects that are softened by state-disseminated ideologies, Bernard Shaw’s plays can be studied in the light of Althusserian approach. In his philosophical career, Althusser contends that in capitalist societies, Ideological State Apparatuses (ISAs) are at work to uphold and publicize the interests of the dominant rulers. These apparatuses are actually such typical and specialized organizations as: “The religious ISA (the system of the different churches) / the educational ISA (the system of the different public and private schools) / the family ISA / the legal ISA / the political ISA / the trade union ISA / the communications ISA (press, radio and television etc.) / the cultural ISA (literature, the arts, sports etc.)” (Althusser, 1972, p. 137).
According to Althusser, as a result of these ISAs, two dominant discourses are at work in societies: ideological and scientific. According to Althusser, while scientific discourses try to provide us with a true understanding of our existence, the ideological ones try to avoid it. Then, one of the tasks of ideologies is to implement “false consciousness” in subjects’ minds (Ferretter, 2006). The two Althusserian discourses are present in many of Shaw’s plays. There, we can see interpellated characters whose minds are rife with ideological discourses and they propagate them all through the plays. On the other hand, we can see characters who can be regarded as the representatives of scientific discourses and become means by which the interpellated individuals can come to a real understanding of their existence. However, at the end of these kinds of plays, idealism (as created by ideologies) is shattered and realism (or, in Althusserian term, scientific discourse) comes to the fore (Evans, 2003).
A noteworthy example of this argument is Shaw’s Arms and the Man, in which viewers see how an idealistic understanding of heroism is substituted by realistic one. From the opening, in the title of the play, the playwright makes use of irony. The title is taken from the introductory lines of the epic “The Aeneid” written between 29 and 19 BC by the Roman poet Virgil—“Of arms and the man I sing …”—in which Virgil praises war (Blake, 2011). In an act of propagating scientific discourse, Shaw’s purpose in this play is to criticize the ideological and idealistic notions of marriage and a war which is at the service of offense, not defence. To discuss the issues, three out of the eight Ideological State Apparatuses (ISAs) enumerated by Althusser are explored in the play and then ideological discourses which are outcome of these ISAs are discussed. The three ISAs include political ISA, family ISA, and cultural ISA. Besides, events and characters that oppose ideological discourses and that as a result act as scientific discourses are discussed in this chapter. But, before going to all these discussions, it would be better to have a short summary of the play.
Arms and the Man, a Short Summary[1]
Bernard Shaw’s Arms and the Man is set during the 1885 Serbo-Bulgarian War. Its heroine, Raina Petkoff, is a young Bulgarian woman engaged to Sergius Saranoff, one of the heroes of that war, whom she idolizes. One night, a Swiss mercenary soldier in the Serbian army, Captain Bluntschli, climbs in through her bedroom balcony window and threatens to shoot Raina if she gives the alarm. When Russian/Bulgarian troops burst in to search the house for him, Raina hides him so that he won’t be killed. He asks her to remember that “nine soldiers out of ten are born fools.” In a conversation after the soldiers have left, Bluntschli’s attitude towards war and soldiering (pragmatic and practical as opposed to Raina’s idealistic views) shocks her, especially after he admits that he uses his ammunition pouches to carry chocolates rather than cartridges for his pistol. When the search dies down, Raina and her mother Catherine sneak Bluntschli out of the house, disguised in an old housecoat.
The war ends with the Bulgarians and Serbians signing a peace treaty and Sergius returns to Raina, but also flirts with her insolent servant girl Louka (a soubrette role), who is engaged to Nicola, the Petkoffs’ manservant. Raina begins to find Sergius both foolhardy and tiresome, but she hides it. Bluntschli unexpectedly returns so that he can give back the old housecoat, but also so that he can see her. Raina and her mother are shocked, especially when her father and Sergius reveal that they have met Bluntschli before and invite him to stay for lunch (and to help them with troop movements).
Afterwards, left alone with Bluntschli, Raina realizes that he sees through her romantic posturing, but that he respects her as a woman, as Sergius does not. She tells him that she had left a photograph of herself in the pocket of the coat, inscribed “To my chocolate-cream soldier”, but Bluntschli says that he didn’t find it and that it must still be in the coat pocket. Bluntschli gets a telegram informing him of his father’s death and revealing to him his now-enormous inheritance. Louka then tells Sergius that Bluntschli is the man whom Raina protected and that Raina is really in love with him. Sergius challenges Bluntschli to a duel, but Bluntschli avoids fighting and Sergius and Raina break off their engagement (with some relief on both sides). Raina’s father, Major Paul Petkoff, discovers the portrait in the pocket of his housecoat; Raina and Bluntschli trick him by removing the photograph before he finds it again in an attempt to convince him that his mind is playing tricks on him, but Petkoff is determined to learn the truth and claims that the “chocolate-cream soldier” is Sergius. After Bluntschli reveals the whole story to Major Petkoff, Sergius proposes marriage to Louka (to Mrs. Petkoff’s horror); Nicola quietly and gallantly lets Sergius have her, and Bluntschli, recognising Nicola’s dedication and ability, determines to offer him a job as a hotel manager.
While Raina is now unattached, Bluntschli protests that—being 34 and believing she is 17—he is too old for her. On learning that she is actually 23, he immediately proposes marriage and proves his wealth and position by listing his inheritance from the telegram. Raina, realizing the hollowness of her romantic ideals, protests that she would prefer her poor “chocolate-cream soldier” to this wealthy businessman. Bluntschli says that he is still the same person, and the play ends with Raina proclaiming her love for him and Bluntschli, with Swiss precision, both clearing up the major’s troop movement problems and informing everyone that he will return to be married to Raina exactly two weeks from Tuesday.
Political ISA, Ideological and Scientific Discourses
As the summary of the played testified, Bernard Shaw’s Arms and the Man is set in the house of a Bulgarian high-rank military man, Major Petkoff, and is concerned with the domestic issues of his household. In this domestic setting, Major Petkoff, his wife and daughter Catherine, and their servants Louka and Nicola are members and as the plays is classified as a “comedy of ideas,” the playwright presents us with their discussions about different things including war and marriage.
The fact that the play represents the household of an army man, it can be argued that it is concerned with the ideas of an RSA representative. In other words, readers or spectators see the attitudes of a family who represents the attitudes of the state. Thus, it is very natural to see that the Petkoffs are pro war. In fact, to see the issue from Althusserian point of view, this family belongs to the army which provides the repressive aspect of the state and, as result, they are ideologically members of a political party which directly supports the interests of the state. Therefore, since at the time of the play, the country is at war, the political ISA to which the Petkoffs belong tries to idolize and idealize war and heroship. This ideological project of the state is clearly seen from the very beginning of the play. In the opening description of the stage, we see “a large photograph of an extremely handsome officer, whose lofty bearing and magnetic glance can be felt even from the portrait” (Bernard Shaw, 1898, p. 1). Also, in the opening description, we see Major Petkoff’s daughter, Raina, as an ideologically-driven character who is “intensely conscious of the romantic beauty of the night, and of the fact that her own youth and beauty is a part of it, is on the balcony, gazing at the snowy Balkans” (Bernard Shaw, 1898, p. 1). In this latter description, Shaw beautifully juxtaposes the words “romantic”, “part”, and “Balkans” to show that for Raina the war at “Balkans” is a “romantic” happening and she feels “a part of this” event. From the very beginning, this indicates that Raina is an interpellated character whose idealism is ideologically influenced.
This is also true of Catherine, Raina’s mother. Like her daughter, she is much occupied with the heroic aspect of war and this shows her membership in the right-wing politics, a political ISA which favors war in the play. This membership makes her and Raina propagators of ideological discourse in the play, especially before disillusionment of Raina at the end of the play. To oppose this discourse, in one of his attempts, Bernard Shaw inserts some stage directions which deflate the ideologically romantic ideas. As an instance, he depicts Raina exaggeratedly and ridiculously romantic and sentimental, or while he describes Catherine, he shows her to be a pretending lady: “Catherine Petkoff, a woman over forty, imperiously energetic, with magnificent black hair and eyes, who might be a very splendid specimen of the wife of a mountain farmer, but is determined to be a Viennese lady, and to that end wears a fashionable tea gown on all occasions” (Bernard Shaw, 1898, p. 2). As this instance shows, one of the sources of scientific discourse is Shaw’s comments in the form of stage directions and this strategy recurs throughout the play by the playwright. Thus, it can be argued that Shaw’s satire in this play is targeted at the ideological sentimentality of these characters, for whom the Serbo-Bulgarian War is an act of heroship:
CATHERINE. Such news. There has been a battle!
RAINA (her eyes dilating). Ah! (She throws the cloak on the ottoman, and comes eagerly to Catherine in her nightgown, a pretty garment, but evidently the only one she has on.)
CATHERINE. A great battle at Slivnitza! A victory! And it was won by Sergius.
RAINA (with a cry of delight). Ah! (Rapturously.) Oh, mother! (Then, with sudden anxiety) Is father safe?
CATHERINE. Of course: he sent me the news. Sergius is the hero of the hour, the idol of the regiment. (Bernard Shaw, 1898, p. 2)
To look at this excerpt stylistically, we can see how it is rife with ideologically idealistic descriptions. The words and expressions “her eyes dilating,” “comes eagerly,” “A great battle,” “A victory” “with a cry of delight,” “Rapturously,” and “the hero of the hour, the idol of the regiment” are all concerned with giving war a positive connotation. These ideas and descriptions are what constitute the worlds of Catherine and Raina. Remarkably, these two interpellated characters cannot tolerate their ideas be shattered. As an example, when Major Petkoff gives a report of war, a report which is not completely in line with Catherine’s ideas, she angrily reacts to them:
PETKOFF. The war’s over. The treaty was signed three days ago at Bucharest; and the decree for our army to demobilize was issued yesterday.
CATHERINE (springing erect, with flashing eyes). The war over! Paul: have you let the Austrians force you to make peace?
PETKOFF (submissively). My dear: they didn’t consult me. What could I do? (She sits down and turns away from him.) But of course we saw to it that the treaty was an honorable one. It declares peace—
CATHERINE (outraged). Peace!
PETKOFF (appeasing her).—but not friendly relations: remember that. They wanted to put that in; but I insisted on its being struck out. What more could I do?
CATHERINE. You could have annexed Servia and made Prince Alexander Emperor of the Balkans. That’s what I would have done. (Bernard Shaw, 1898, p. 61)
Here, the presence and comments of Petkoff is a threat to Catherine’s idealistic thinking. She is so interpellated that even hearing the news of peace, an event that may prevent death of her husband and thousands of others, outrages her. Also, she is so soaked in her family’s rank that she believes her husband is able to appoint the emperor of the Balkans. Unlike Catherine, Petkoff is a bit more rational about war and peace. The reason lies clearly in the fact that he has directly been exposed to the war. But, he still has some idealistic notion with himself. His is in fact more selfish, as described by Shaw:
He is a cheerful, excitable, insignificant, unpolished man of about 50, naturally unambitious except as to his income and his importance in local society, but just now greatly pleased with the military rank which the war has thrust on him as a man of consequence in his town. The fever of plucky patriotism which the Servian attack roused in all the Bulgarians has pulled him through the war; but he is obviously glad to be home again. (Bernard Shaw, 1898, p. 60)
While Shaw describes Petkoff’s ideological importance and stance, he once again deflates it by giving us some realities of this man: he is “insignificant, unpolished” and “naturally unambitious” and that war for him is a service to his selfish drives. Also, Shaw informs us that his participation in war is not out of his conscious will; it is in fact out of “the fever of plucky patriotism.” All these information, as went before, are Shaw’s attempts to provide us with the scientific discourse. Against these attempts are some of characters of the play who see the issue romantically. While Shaw deflates Petkoff and also his future son-in-law Sergius, Raina and her mother worship these two men. The time when Captain Bluntschli, the Swiss mercenary soldier in the Serbian army, climbs in through her bedroom balcony window, she introduces Sergius in this way: “That is a photograph of the gentleman—the patriot and hero—to whom I am betrothed” (Bernard Shaw, 1898, p. 17). Also, she introduces her father in this way:
RAINA. I forgot. It might make you cry. (He nods, quite seriously. She pouts and then resumes her patronizing tone.) I must tell you that my father holds the highest command of any Bulgarian in our army. He is (proudly) a Major.
MAN (pretending to be deeply impressed). A Major! Bless me! Think of that! (Bernard Shaw, 1898, p. 18)
The presence of the man, who is later called Captain Bluntschli, is another introduction of scientific discourse in the play. He is in fact the voice of realism in the play whose ideas are in stark contrast with those of Raina. In this extract, he pretends to be impressed by Raina’s pride in her father’s rank. This shows that all these ranks are meaningless for him and this comes from his realistic view of war. Throughout their encounter in the first act, he frequently deflates ideological ideas of Raina:
MAN. Well, I don’t intend to get killed if I can help it. (Still more determinedly.) Do you understand that? (He locks the door with a snap.)
RAINA (disdainfully). I suppose not. (She draws herself up superbly, and looks him straight in the face, saying with emphasis) Some soldiers, I know, are afraid of death.
MAN (with grim goodhumor). All of them, dear lady, all of them, believe me. It is our duty to live as long as we can, and kill as many of the enemy as we can. (Bernard Shaw, 1898, p. 19)
In this extract, life and death in battlefields is in question. While Raina believes that most of soldiers are interested in dying for their cause, the man tries to show her the realistic side of the issue and tries to make her believe that war contains the duty of killing enemies and surviving oneself. This contention is in fact a representation of scientific discourse for Shaw’s audience who, in his belief, might be as ideologically stricken as Raina and her mother. Remarkably, similar to Bluntschli, Sergius, a man who is Raina and Catherine’s idol, sees soldiering as a matter of survival and he himself acts as scientific discourse in the play. In a scene after his return from war and after his experiences of trenches, he says to Catherine:
SERGIUS. I am no longer a soldier. Soldiering, my dear madam, is the coward’s art of attacking mercilessly when you are strong, and keeping out of harm’s way when you are weak. That is the whole secret of successful fighting. Get your enemy at a disadvantage; and never, on any account, fight him on equal terms. Eh, Major!
PETKOFF. They wouldn’t let us make a fair stand-up fight of it. However, I suppose soldiering has to be a trade like any other trade. (Bernard Shaw, 1898, p. 62)
Ironically, these ideas are expressed from the mouths of men who have been romantically worshipped at home by their women. It is exactly at this point that Althusser’s definition of ideology, that it characterizes “the imaginary relationship of individuals to their real conditions of existence” (Althusser, 1972, p. 153), is realized. The “real conditions” of Raina and Catherine is that their men have fought for their survival, they have been at war for their selfish needs, and they see war as a trade, while ideology has created for these two women an imaginary space in which “a false consciousness” is suggested for them. Indeed, creating a heroic figure of their men is the working of the political ISA to which the women belong and surprisingly this image is shattered by the very so-called heroes and also by Bluntschli as a mercenary. This aspect of Bluntschli is also an indication of scientific discourse. When Bluntschli wants to give more information about himself, he regards himself as a man who is paid to fight:
MAN. Austrian! not I. Don’t hate me, dear young lady. I am only a Swiss, fighting merely as a professional soldier. I joined Servia because it was nearest to me. (Bernard Shaw, 1898, p. 19)
This argument of Bluntschli shows that there is no ulterior cause of fighting for him. He fights for any country or group that pays him and, more surprisingly, he fights for the nearest country, showing realistically that even distance is more important for him than the romantic ideas Raina has in mind. In addition to this contention, the most momentous instant in deflating ideological discourse occurs when Bluntschli talks about his pistol:
MAN (grinning wearily at the sarcasm as he takes the pistol). No use, dear young lady: there’s nothing in it. It’s not loaded. (He makes a grimace at it, and drops it disparagingly into his revolver case.)
RAINA. Load it by all means.
MAN. I’ve no ammunition. What use are cartridges in battle? I always carry chocolate instead; and I finished the last cake of that yesterday.
RAINA (outraged in her most cherished ideals of manhood). Chocolate! Do you stuff your pockets with sweets—like a schoolboy—even in the field?
MAN. Yes. Isn’t it contemptible?
(Raina stares at him, unable to utter her feelings. Then she sails away scornfully to the chest of drawers, and returns with the box of confectionery in her hand.) (Bernard Shaw, 1898, p. 19)
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This moment is one of the most satiric parts of the play. This is a moment when Raina’s “ideals of manhood” is shattered and she is made “outraged.” By such information, her ideas of Patriotic and heroic soldiers are confronted with chocolate soldiers. This transition of idealism to realism is in fact a transition from ideological discourse to scientific discourse, or removal of “the imaginary relationship” of Raina to her “real conditions of existence.” Bluntschli’s final blow to Raina’s ideological outlook is the time when he cannot keep wake and expresses some of his realities when falling asleep:
MAN (drowsily). Sleep, sleep, sleep, sleep, slee—(The words trail off into a murmur. He wakes again with a shock on the point of falling.) Where am I? That’s what I want to know: where am I? Must keep awake. Nothing keeps me awake except danger—remember that—(intently) danger, danger, danger, dan— Where’s danger? Must find it. (He starts of vaguely around the room in search of it.) What am I looking for? Sleep—danger—don’t know. (He stumbles against the bed.) Ah, yes: now I know. All right now. I’m to go to bed, but not to sleep—be sure not to sleep—because of danger. Not to lie down, either, only sit down. (He sits on the bed. A blissful expression comes into his face.) Ah! (With a happy sigh he sinks back at full length; lifts his boots into the bed with a final effort; and falls fast asleep instantly.) (Bernard Shaw, 1898, p. 21)
Bluntschli’s sleepy words come out of his unconscious mind, revealing his true idea about his situation. When seen these words symbolically, they can be interpreted that a soldier keeps consciousness not to perform his duties for his country, but to ward off danger and keep alive. Putting it another way, the soldier’s keeping watchfulness is out of selfish drives rather than altruistic ones. This same selfishness is also seen in Raina and Catherine’s idol, Sergius, in another way. In the second scene after they are back from the war, he explains his decision to hand in his resignation because of the fact that he was not given promotion.
Family ISA, Ideological and Scientific Discourses
While Arms and the Man is a play about love and war, it is thoroughly set in a house.
This domestic setting is an issue which paves the way to approach the play with a focus on the interior ideological workings, which is called family ISA in Althusserian term. When ISA manifests itself in the form of family, its mission becomes teaching certain disciplines in domestic settings to prepare the family members for social activities. Thus, to achieve this, the roles of discipline making and transmission of ideologies are given to fathers or mothers in households.
In the opening of the play, this role is clearly seen on the shoulders of Catherine as the mother of the house. It is Catherine who first enters Raina’s room and gives a report of the war. In this scene, Raina as a subject is in fact interpellated by her mother as a family ISA:
CATHERINE (with surging enthusiasm). You can’t guess how splendid it is. A cavalry charge—think of that! He defied our Russian commanders—acted without orders—led a charge on his own responsibility—headed it himself—was the first man to sweep through their guns. Can’t you see it, Raina; our gallant splendid Bulgarians with their swords and eyes flashing, thundering down like an avalanche and scattering the wretched Servian dandies like chaff. (Bernard Shaw, 1898, p. 3)
A close reading of the statements used by Catherine shows how she masterfully sets positive words next to each other to create an idealistic notion of the act. This idealism goes to an extent that faulty actions (defying commanders and acting without orders) are lost among them. Again remarkably, like other ideological discourses, Catherine’s is also full of false information. At the end of act one, Catherine’s ideological discourse is rejected by Bluntschli’s narration of the same scene. When Raina asks him to describe “a cavalry charge,” Bluntschli answers “it’s a funny sight” (Bernard Shaw, 1898, p. 16). Then he describes an operation by the first One, which is exactly the same scene Catherine had described for Raina:
MAN. He did it like an operatic tenor—a regular handsome fellow, with flashing eyes and lovely moustache, shouting a war-cry and charging like Don Quixote at the windmills. We nearly burst with laughter at him; but when the sergeant ran up as white as a sheet, and told us they’d sent us the wrong cartridges, and that we couldn’t fire a shot for the next ten minutes, we laughed at the other side of our mouths. I never felt so sick in my life, though I’ve been in one or two very tight places. And I hadn’t even a revolver cartridge—nothing but chocolate. We’d no bayonets—nothing. Of course, they just cut us to bits. And there was Don Quixote flourishing like a drum major, thinking he’d done the cleverest thing ever known, whereas he ought to be courtmartialled for it. Of all the fools ever let loose on a field of battle, that man must be the very maddest. He and his regiment simply committed suicide—only the pistol missed fire, that’s all. (Bernard Shaw, 1898, p. 16)
In Bluntschli’s realistic narration, Catherine’s heroic act becomes an act of suicide. Here Raina, who was interpellated by family ISA, now faces a realistic discourse and when, by showing Sergius’s picture to Bluntschli, she becomes sure that her fiancé’s action was such unprofessional that “he ought to be courtmartialled,” she grows angry as a result. This anger is in fact mostly because of the disruption made in her ideas. While consequences of this dilemma are seen later in the play, Raina projects her anger on Bluntschli:
RAINA. That is to say, he was a pretender and a coward! You did not dare say that before.
MAN (with a comic gesture of despair). It’s no use, dear lady: I can’t make you see it from the professional point of view. (Bernard Shaw, 1898, p. 18)
Bluntschli’s “professional point of view” is in fact the scientific discourse in the play, to which Raina as a subject of family ISA is totally unaware of. The introduction of Bluntschli in the play results in the recession of ideological discourse in Raina’s mind, both about war and marriage. In addition to the question of war, Raina is also affected by the orders of family ISA in regard to her future husband. Sergius is idolized mostly through family ISA in Raina’s mind. In the opening dialogue between the mother and daughter, the man Catherine talks about is Sergius. In Catherine’s description of him, we can find attempts of mother as an ISA to prepare her daughter for marriage. This even goes to a point where she punishes her verbally for negligence: “And you—you kept Sergius waiting a year before you would be betrothed to him. Oh, if you have a drop of Bulgarian blood in your veins, you will worship him when he comes back” (Bernard Shaw, 1898, p. 4).
However, in spite of Catherine’s endeavors to mold her desired daughter, Raina proves to be perverse to the family ISA. As an instance, in the first dialogue with her mother, she shows to be dubious about Sergius by saying “It proves that all our ideas were real after all” (Bernard Shaw, 1898, p. 4). This argument, which causes indignant reaction of Catherine, shows that there are roots of doubt about ideological discourses in Raina. Throughout the play, such doubts increase by her exposure to Bluntschli’s information about war and her fiancés. Finally, the last stroke for her ideas is the time when she gradually finds Sergius’s flirting with their servant Louka. All these disillusions lead to her disregard for family ISA:
RAINA (with cool impertinence). Oh, I know Sergius is your pet. I sometimes wish you could marry him instead of me. You would just suit him. You would pet him, and spoil him, and mother him to perfection.
CATHERINE (opening her eyes very widely indeed). Well, upon my word!
RAINA (capriciously—half to herself). I always feel a longing to do or say something dreadful to him—to shock his propriety—to scandalize the five senses out of him! (To Catherine perversely.) I don’t care whether he finds out about the chocolate cream soldier or not. I half hope he may. (She again turns flippantly away and strolls up the path to the corner of the house.)
CATHERINE. And what should I be able to say to your father, pray? (Bernard Shaw, 1898, p. 57)
Raina’s use of “mother him to perfection” indicates her awareness of Catherine’s role as family ISA. Also, Catherine’s reactions by her face expression and by stating “Well, upon my word!” further prove her adopted role as an ISA. But, Catherine’s ideological role is no longer working on Raina and consequently she resorts to Raina’s father as a more powerful ideological presence. Like Catherine, Petkoff proves to have no influence on Raina and she leaves carelessly the scene.
Raina’s negligence, as went before, is greatly rooted in her exposure to the scientific discourse Bluntschli provides her with. In addition to illuminating her about war and marriage, Bluntschli enlightens her about herself. In one of such attempts, he faces her with the lies she tells. When Raina’s ideal thought about herself is shattered, she reacts:
RAINA (gasping). I! I!!! (She points to herself incredulously, meaning “I, Raina Petkoff, tell lies!” He meets her gaze unflinchingly. She suddenly sits down beside him, and adds, with a complete change of manner from the heroic to the familiar) How did you find me out? (Bernard Shaw, 1898, p. 77)
After coming to understand herself, Raina chooses Bluntschli as her suitable husband. In fact, in this satiric play, it seems Bernard Shaw sets everything to show the victory of realism over idealism. In one of them, Shaw satirizes Petkoff and Catherine whose respect for Sergius suddenly is shifted to Bluntschli when they find out he has inherited a great deal from his father:
BLUNTSCHLI. I have. I have nine thousand six hundred pairs of sheets and blankets, with two thousand four hundred eider-down quilts. I have ten thousand knives and forks, and the same quantity of dessert spoons. I have six hundred servants. I have six palatial establishments, besides two livery stables, a tea garden and a private house. I have four medals for distinguished services; I have the rank of an officer and the standing of a gentleman; and I have three native languages. Show me any man in Bulgaria that can offer as much.
PETKOFF (with childish awe). Are you Emperor of Switzerland?
BLUNTSCHLI. My rank is the highest known in Switzerland: I’m a free citizen.
CATHERINE. Then Captain Bluntschli, since you are my daughter’s choice, I shall not stand in the way of her happiness. (Petkoff is about to speak.) That is Major Petkoff’s feeling also.
PETKOFF. Oh, I shall be only too glad. Two hundred horses! Whew! (Bernard Shaw, 1898, p. 83)
This extract also reminds us of Marxian contention that it is capital that defines relationships among humans. Bluntschli is the same person who was teased and rejected by Catherine as a Servian. But, when Bluntschli turns out to be a rich man, she suddenly changes her mind. At the end of the play, Bluntschli, who can be taken as the mouthpiece of the playwright, is the winner in all respects. As the representative of scientific discourse, he wins the mind of Petkoff family and makes them fond of him. Thus, his victory is the dominance of the scientific discourse over the ideological one.
Cultural ISA, Ideological and Scientific Discourses
As pointed out in the second chapter, the cultural ISA is one of the ISAs enumerated by Althusser which manifests itself in the forms of literature, the arts, sports etc. All these manifestations can in fact be reflectors of a political cause or of a good manner and propriety, with the final goal of reproducing dominant ideologies and producing pliant subjects. In Shaw’s Arms and the Man, cultural ISA shows itself in the character’s preoccupations with such cultural centers and things as “library,” “opera,” and “novel.” Remarkably, all these are mentioned as signs of rank and class coalition.
In the first act of the play, where Raina and the army man talk about Raina’s house and family, Raina tries to prove her family status and its membership in higher class society. To do this, she first mentions the luxurious nature of their house by saying “There is a flight of stairs inside to get up and down by” (Bernard Shaw, 1898, p. 3). This statement results in the army man’s surprise: “Stairs! How grand! You live in great luxury indeed, dear young lady” (Bernard Shaw, 1898, p. 3). Then, Raina resorts to “library” as a cultural ISA to further prove her rank and class:
RAINA. Do you know what a library is?
MAN. A library? A roomful of books.
RAINA. Yes, we have one, the only one in Bulgaria.
MAN. Actually a real library! I should like to see that.
RAINA (affectedly). I tell you these things to shew you that you are not in the house of ignorant country folk who would kill you the moment they saw your Servian uniform, but among civilized people. We go to Bucharest every year for the opera season; and I have spent a whole month in Vienna. (Bernard Shaw, 1898, p. 14)
Raina’s final dialogue in this excerpt suggests that her reference to the library and opera and her comparion between “country folk” and “civilized people” are in fact an indication of her ideological rank, with the aim of preserving class coalition. This ideological dialogue is also emphasized by the playwright when he uses the work “affectedly” in the stage direction. In her “The Petkoffs’ Social Status and Its Impact on Louka’s Desire for Social Mobility in George Bernard Shaw’s Arms and the Man,” Vita Vendityaningtyas points to this excerpt and argues that all Raina’s consciousness and pride comes as a result of her father’s occupation in “the Bulgarian army, which is able to put her family in the high rank of society, the richest and best-known family in the country” (Bernard Shaw, 1898, p. 6). This means that the higher social class to which Petkoffs is a member and also the ISAs they use to uphold it have all a root in the army as an RSA. This relationship in the play keeps in line with Althusser’s point regarding the interaction of ISAs and RSA. In other words, the cultural ISA in this excerpt is at service of supporting economic and social class and this class has come about as a result of belonging to the army as an RSA.
In addition to Raina, Major Petkoff is also attentive of the library as a sign of social standing and refinement. The moment he comes on stage and talks to Catherine, the two discuss whether Petkoff behaved himself before Russian officers. To prove good manner, Petkoff tells his wife “I did my best. I took care to let them know that we had a library” (Bernard Shaw, 1898, p. 47). In another part of the play, when Captain Bluntschli comes to his house, Petkoff uses this cultural ISA to emphasize his membership to higher class society:
PETKOFF (too preoccupied to notice her as he shakes Bluntschli’s hand heartily). Those stupid people of mine thought I was out here, instead of in the—haw!—library. (He cannot mention the library without betraying how proud he is of it.) I saw you through the window. I was wondering why you didn’t come in. Saranoff is with me: you remember him, don’t you? (Bernard Shaw, 1898, p. 53)
Here, Major Petkoff draws a comparison between “stupid people” and himself. Though these “stupid people” belong to him, the difference in social class becomes a way to give Petkoff identity. In fact, by this statement he suggests that these people do not know much about library or, in final analysis, about culture, while he does. The pause and the word “haw” that exists in mentioning “library” shows that this cultural place is not merely a location; it has also ideological tone to it. In addition, the playwright’s stage direction, which emphasizes Petkoff’s pride in mentioning library, is another indication of ideological discourse. While Shaw’s emphasis points to the ideological importance of the library, it also acts as a realistic discourse. In other words, this stage direction exposes the library as a cultural ISA and this exposition paves the way for realistic discourse in the text or for the spectators.
Another cultural ISA that is shown in the play is literature. Throughout the play, novel and opera is sometimes mentioned in the stage direction or by the characters. In the first description of the setting of the play, Shaw describes “a chest of drawers” on which “there is a pile of paper backed novels” (Bernard Shaw, 1898, p. 44). Here, Shaw puts the novels on stage to indicate that the place he is describing belongs to a higher class family. But it is not this indication that changes novels into cultural ISAs. Rather, it is the attitudes of characters towards these cultural entities that make it ideological. In one of such instances in the first act, we see Raina soaked in her ideologically romantic world:
RAINA (looking up at the picture with worship.) Oh, I shall never be unworthy of you any more, my hero—never, never, never.
(She replaces it reverently, and selects a novel from the little pile of books. She turns over the leaves dreamily; finds her page; turns the book inside out at it; and then, with a happy sigh, gets into bed and prepares to read herself to sleep. But before abandoning herself to fiction, she raises her eyes once more, thinking of the blessed reality and murmurs)
My hero! my hero! (Bernard Shaw, 1898, p. 17)
Here, the presence of the novel is not one of enlightening for Raina. It is in fact at the service of her romantic world. The fact that she “turns over the leaves dreamily” points to the ideological function of the novel. In other words, the novel here is a sign of civility and gives a sense of belonging to higher class society. Once again, this ideological role of the novel is challenged by Shaw’s realistic discourse in his stage direction. In the opening description of the third act, Shaw describes Raina in this way: “Raina, reclining on the divan under the left hand window, is gazing in a daydream out at the Balkan landscape, with a neglected novel in her lap” (Bernard Shaw, 1898, p. 7). The “neglected novel” which adds to the “daydream out at the Balkan landscape” can be taken as Shaw’s attempt to uncover the ideological role of the novel and to provide us with a realistic aspect of his characters’ lives. Similarly, in the same stage direction, Shaw exposes us to the reality of the same library to which Petkoff and his family are proud of:
In the library after lunch. It is not much of a library, its literary equipment consisting of a single fixed shelf stocked with old paper-covered novels, broken backed, coffee stained, torn and thumbed, and a couple of little hanging shelves with a few gift books on them, the rest of the wall space being occupied by trophies of war and the chase. But it is a most comfortable sitting-room. (Bernard Shaw, 1898, p.73)
As Vendityaningtyas (2011) points out, “the trophies of war and chase show that the owner of the house must be somebody special” (11). The important point is that these trophies are displayed in a library to give them a cultural aspect. However, in this scene Shaw attacks the pretense, or ideological function, of the library. By stating that “It is not much of a library” and by calling it “a most comfortable sitting-room,” Shaw tries to create a scientific discourse in the play. In addition to the library and novel, “opera” as a cultural ISA is mentioned:
RAINA. Have you ever seen the opera of Ernani?
MAN. Is that the one with the devil in it in red velvet, and a soldier’s chorus?
RAINA (contemptuously). No!
MAN (stifling a heavy sigh of weariness). Then I don’t know it.
RAINA. I thought you might have remembered the great scene where Ernani, flying from his foes just as you are tonight, takes refuge in the castle of his bitterest enemy, an old Castilian noble. The noble refuses to give him up. His guest is sacred to him.
MAN (quickly waking up a little). Have your people got that notion?
RAINA (with dignity). My mother and I can understand that notion, as you call it. And if instead of threatening me with your pistol as you did, you had simply thrown yourself as a fugitive on our hospitality, you would have been as safe as in your father’s house. (Bernard Shaw, 1898, p. 33)
This except depicts Raina as an interpellated character. Her interpellation is as a result of her exposure to opera as a cultural ISA. Remarkably, she acts exactly the same as the story of the opera, showing the extent of the influence of the cultural ISA one her. In addition, she is proud of this influence and regards it as a sign of intellectualism and sophistication. This feeling of her is the same “consent” Althusser finds in ISAs.
Conclusion
In the end, it should be noted that Bernard Shaw’s Arms and the Man is capable of being studied in the light of Althusserian philosophy. The play contains ideological discourses coming out of such Ideological State Apparatuses as political ISA, family ISA, and cultural ISA. These ISAs are at work to mold the needed subject for the state. In this play, the Petkoffs belong to the party, or the political ISA, which is pro war. This membership is actually a life in an ideological discourse which tries to idealize war and those who are involved in it. Thus, we see how different ISAs are at work to produce ideological discourses about war and the so-called heroes in it, and how they legitimize marriage to one of these heroes. To oppose these discourses, Shaw masterfully introduces events and characters as scientific discourses. All these, which manifest themselves in action, Shaw’s stage direction, and the character of Bluntschli, are in fact at work to deflate ideologies and provide viewers and readers with realism.
Works Cited
Althusser, L. (1972). Lenin and Philosophy, and Other Essays. New York: Monthly Review.
Bernard Shaw, G. (2015). Arms and the Man. Leopold Classic Library.
Blake, B. J. (2011). Secret Language: Codes, Tricks, Spies, Thieves, and Symbols. Oxford: Oxford UP.
Evans, J. (2003). The Politics and Plays of Bernard Shaw. Jefferson, NC: McFarland.
Ferretter, L. (2006). Louis Althusser. London: Routledge.
Vendityaningtyas, V. (2011). “The Petkoffs’ Social Status and Its Impact on Louka’s Desire for Social Mobility in George Bernard Shaw’s Arms and the Man.” edu-lingua 1.1.
[1] This short summary is taken from the online encyclopedia Wikipedia
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