- Literary research : The Main Themes on George Bernard Shaw’s Arms and the Man’A Thematic Study’

This research entitles “The Main Themes on George Bernard Shaw’s Arms and the Man: A Thematic Study.” This means the writer tries to find out the main themes on a literary work. Specifically, this analysis is aimed to pick out two main themes of the play. The first is about war, and the second is about love and marriage. Further, this analysis is continued to discuss the two themes how the author elaborates them in the play. The writer will also add her finding about moral values after discussing the two main themes of the play.

Her analysis will be a qualitative research in which those data that she needs available on the library. Therefore, she collects the data from the library and classifies them into two classifications. The first is called the primary data. The data will be taken from the play which becomes her first sources in this analysis. The second is called secondary data which she uses to support or to back up her analysis finding. The data will be taken from many sources such as literary books, other references, magazines, and so fort. To deal with, the writer takes many definitions of the theme as the theory in conducting her analysis. She focuses on the understanding of the definition of the theme.

She finds two main themes that Shaw wanted to walk around as the topics of the discussion in the play. First, it is about war and second it is about love and marriage. Shaw explodes the view that war is romantic game where the soldier who takes the biggest risk in war wins the greatest glory and he is the greatest hero. He interlinks the idea of war with the idea of love and marriage. He situates his characters in the two conditions in which the characters—Sergius and Bluntchli have the same profession but they are different in view to undergo their profession as soldier. The description about love and marriage sounds similar to the Indonesian proverb “Cinta di Awak Kawin di Orang” (anonymous). Raina falls in love to Sergius but married with Bluntchli.
ABSTRACT by Repi Indarti