House of Notes

The Realism of Shaw in the play In Bluntschli, Shaw has presented a realistic portrait of an average soldier, who is ready to fight when he must and is gland to escape when he can. Shaw has shown that a soldier is an ordinary creature of flesh and blood, who suffers from hunger and fatigue, and who is roused to action only by danger. In short, as Sergius puts it, war is a trade like any other trade; it is the coward's art of attacking the enemy when one gets him at a disadvantage, and of avoiding to fight him on equal terms. Of course, war is to be fought when absolutely necessary, but there should be no glorification of war. War is a brutal affair, and we should not sing songs of it. The cruelty and horror of war one highlighted through the relation of the horrible death of the twelve soldiers burnt alive in a farmhouse. In this way idealistic notions of war are punctured. Both Sergius and Raina are disillusioned in their romantic or idealistic notions of war; they ...

Arms and the Man: Wit and Humour “Arms and the Man” is not merely a farce but a true comedy . The purpose of a comedy is to ridicule and expose human or social folly or weakness and to drive that folly out of courts. Though there is ample of farcical, loud laughter in the play, but the laughter has a serous purpose and this differentiates the play from a mere farce. Shaw laughs, but his laughter has a serious purpose. Besides provoking mirth he also provokes thoughts. Shaw is one of the greatest humorists in English literature the other humourist are Shakespeare and Dickens. However, Shaw’s is different from both Shakespeare and Dickens as his humour arises from the difference between instinctive conduct, or social institutions and social codes of conduct. This is Shaw’s contribution to the art of comedy. “Arms and the Man” is rich in humour. There is enough of humour of character in the play. Major Petkoff, Catherine Petkoff, Sergius and Captain Bluntschli are all h...

Stream of Consciousness in “To the Light House” Introduction Virginia Woolf is considered the perfect master of stream of consciousness novel. The phrase “Stream of consciousness was first used William James in his “Principles of psychology” in 1890. Three novelists – Marcel Proust in France, James Joyce in Ireland and M. Richardson in England – were three main architects of this type of the novel. This new type of novel flourished during the period between 1915 to 1939, and it was Virginia Woolf who gave this type of novel a proper shape and adequate refinement. Study of Human Psyche, The chief object of the stream of consciousness novel is the study of human psyche or human consciousness. The novelists of this technique believe that human actions are determined more by the sub-conscious and the unconscious than by the conscious. Instead of a tendency at concentration around a limited issue, those novelists fly off in an eccentric manner in different directions. They hav...