Q) How does George Bernard Shaw's play "Augustus Does His Bit" criticize the phenomena of war? Do you think war is inherently unjust and immoral or it is sometimes a necessary action?
ANSWER
"Augusts Does His Bit. A true to -Life Force" is a comic play about a foolishly idealistic aristocrat who is deceived by a spy woman during the war between Britain and Germany. It is an anti-war play which exposes the false notions of society about war and its heros. The play gradually unfolds how the build stupidity of Augustus becomes ineffective when confronting the plain of reality. It is a force, that is, a light dramatic composition marked by broadly satirical comedy and improbable plot. Essentially, the play is an anti-romantic comic play, which exposes the false notions of the society about war and its heros.
Here, the playwright through the clerk's views shows the negative side of the war and its effects on common people. Augustus represents an arrogant foolish character who takes war as a serious matter to strengthen the notion.
Augustus was sitting in the Mayor's parlor. He was in colonel dress and reading the morning post. The clerk came in. He requested Augustus to increase his salary because he didn't want to die of hunger. On the other hand, Augustus ignored it and said it was not suitable to increase salary in the time of war because many gallout armies were dying in the trench In fact, to save money for war Augustus didn't want to invest money to sweep the street and wanted to reduce the allowance of petrol by three quarters. He also wanted to replace the gas stove with a grate
Augustus had delivered recruiting speech. He told the clerk that it was his best speech which was made for army enrolment for world war first, and his town's people needed such speech to wake up. However, the clerk showed negative aspects of war. As war is always destructive and fruitless, it brings only pain and misery to human life. It is senseless and meaningless, therefore, the clerk said, "the country is going to the dogs."
As the clerk's views were different than him he, became furious and sent him out. Then he was informed that a female spy is after an important document in his possession: A beautiful woman visited him. After flattering him by saying how important he was, she told him that she suspected her sister-in-law of being a spy. She told Augustus brother. Blueloo, had made a bet than Augustus could be easily tricked, and intended to use this woman to prove it. If she because able to get the document a list of British gun emplacements, and gave it to "Blueloo". Augustus's incompetence would be exposed.
The cleck entered holding the document, which Augustus has left on a coffee table in the hotel. It was the document that the lady wanted to steal The lady very smartly exchanged the document with a fake one then she called "Blue loo" to tell that she easily outwitted Lord Augustus Augustus then realized that she was the spy who made him a fool.
The play criticized the phenomena of war. The mayor Augusts thinks that he can do justice by waging the war. His thinking about the war is very easy. He fails to estimate the results of the war. The force shows that if the characters like Augustus can be deceived even by a female spy then why not the others. The background of First World War shows that war is always criticized. In my perspective, war is unjust and immoral because it makes people specially the rulers selfish. And rulers think that it is not the rulers who are really victimized by the repercussions of the war. So it is moral to send other's children into the war. As the play shows the war in never a necessary action. War brings the rifts between the brothers. They start to challenge each other And the mayor like characters are even cheated by the cheap woman spy So the play always criticized the phenomena of war. A spy woman is seen in the scene outwitting men and the incompetence of the aristocratic ruling class.
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