Oedipus pursues the truth and that costs him his sight. Hamlet avenges a ghost and that costs him his life. But the plague is lifted from Thebes and the smell wafting from Denmark promises to be sweeter under the rule of Fortinbras. The tragic hero of Sophocles and Shakespeare suffers but restores harmony to his world. The antihero of the twentieth century in Western theater also suffers, but his journey often leaves his world in greater chaos. Rather than answering some of our questions about life and humanity, he challenges us to question most of our preconceived answers. He challenges us to be modern. 

Over the last century, the archetypical antihero is by no means a static character. He begins benignly in the work of Shaw, and early Brecht, deflating hypocritical verities and challenging the status quo in more of an antic than dramatic fashion.

In Arms And The Man, Shaw gives us Captain Bluntschli who is, indeed, a blunt fellow. We first meet him as a veteran soldier trapped behind enemy lines, forced to hide in a woman's bedroom. He snatches Raina's robe leaving her only in her nightgown to insure that she won't call for help and be seen in such a state of undress. When she protests that this is not the weapon of a gentleman, he replies, "It's good enough for a man with only you to stand between him and death" (Arms 6). Yet, the Captain is not a total scoundrel, returning her robe when the room is searched. And Raina hides him, curious about this man who readily admits that he's a nervous wreck after three days of battle, and who prefers carrying chocolate and cake rather than bullets as a means to survive. How different Bluntschli is compared to Raina's fiancee, Sergius, who has courted her with Byron and Pushkin, and whose words she worships but also doubts. And how flustered Raina  becomes when she discovers through Bluntschli that her war hero, Sergius, was laughed at by his enemy as easy pickings in leading the charge, and he was successful only because that enemy had been sent the wrong ammunition for their rifles (10). By the end of the first act, Bluntschli's presence is a dart in Raina's romantic balloon, but Raina is not just hot air; she enlists her mother to protect this exhausted man.