Arms and the Man

“Arms and the Man” is a play by George Bernard Shaw, an Irish playwright who became the leading dramatist of his generation, and in 1925 was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.


Arms and the Man is a humorous play that shows the futility of war and deals comedically with the hypocrisies of human nature. It was published as a part of Plays Pleasant, which also included The Man of Destiny, Candida and You Never Can Tell. Shaw titled the volume Plays Pleasant in order to contrast it with his first book of plays, Plays Unpleasant.