Shaw’un Silahlar Ve İnsanlar (1894) Oyununa Rus Biçimci Bir Yaklaşim
A Russian Formalist Approach to Shaw’s Arms and the Man (1894)

Summary/Abstract: Shaw was considered to be such an eccentric writer at the beginning of his career as a playwright that although only 30 out of 3000 plays were censored by the authorities at the turn of the century (1890-1910), three of these 30 plays belonged to Shaw: Mrs Warren’s Profession (1894), The Shewing-Up of Blanco Posnet (1909) and Press Cuttings (1909). Shaw who made it a principle to shock the audience of the late Victorian period, assumed an irreconcilable attitude. However, in his fourth play Arms and the Man (1894), Shaw came up with a totally different strategy which served his Fabian political ends more effectively. Having comitted to breaking all the established and fossilized stereotypes in the first three plays, he might appear to be adopting an incompatible approach in his fourth play. On the other hand, he established closer and more consistent ties with the Fabian socialist ideology that he championed. Having realized that he could more effectively shatter the stereotypes through cliches, he particulary chose to utilize the common ground and well established literary conventions of the theatre and literature. This study aims to analyze Shaw’s Arms and the Man with a view to Russian formalists Propp and Tomashevski’s theories and discuss how this change of strategy served Shaw’s political ends.

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