ENGLISH LITERATURE (CBSE/UGC NET)

Detailed explanation-1: -Man and Superman is a four-act drama written by George Bernard Shaw in 1903.

Detailed explanation-2: -His earliest dramas were called appropriately Plays Pleasant and Unpleasant (1898). Among these, Widower’s Houses and Mrs. Warren’s Profession savagely attack social hypocrisy, while in plays such as Arms and the Man and The Man of Destiny the criticism is less fierce.

Detailed explanation-3: -One of Shaw’s aims in this play is to debunk the romantic heroics of war; he wanted to present a realistic account of war and to remove all pretensions of nobility from war. It is not, however, an anti-war play; instead, it is a satire on those attitudes which would glorify war.

Detailed explanation-4: -Sergius is Raina’s foil. He too is revealed to be far different than he first appears. He is not quite the noble hero of the Battle of Slivnitza. As Bluntschli notes, his cavalry charge was at best ill-informed, and it played to Sergius’s vanity.