George Bernard Shaw’s Arms and the Man: An Anti-ideological Comedy or an Ideological Comic Work?

This article reads George Bernard Shaw’s Arms and the Man from three different aspects of the text, audience, and the historical structure, in the light of Louis Althusser’s sociological concepts with a focus on the concept of “Ideological State Apparatuses” in order to emphasize the presence of ideological and anti-ideological discourses. Given the anti-war nature of the work, Shaw’s play is one of the clearest examples in which conflicting discourses about war, namely the belligerent discourse and the anti-war discourse, are reflected. The present study examines belligerent discourse in the ideological beliefs of romanticism and heroism and seeks out antiwar discourses in the realistic and pragmatic approach to war. As the two opposing approaches to war are expressed by representatives of ideological and anti-ideological discourses, Althusser’s concept of “an ideological call” is used to emphasize the process of producing ideological subjects. In addition to explaining the conflicting discourses in the play, by citing Althusser’s definition of literature in Lenin and Philosophy and “The Letter on Art”, this article discuss the possibility of the ideological or anti-ideological function of Shaw’s play in the real world by referring to some performances of the play. Considering the historical documents and Shaw’s dissatisfaction with his audience’s misunderstanding of the message of the play in its performances in England, this study concludes that, in line with Althusser’s argument, the only way to ensure the anti-ideological mission of this literary work is to highlight the conflicting discourses through literary criticism.