Louka is the daughter
of a poor Bulgarian farmer. She is beautiful. She is proud and defiant. She is
uneducated. She has no culture. She has no romantic illusion like Raina. She is
a servant-girl of the Petkoffs family. She is engaged to Nicola, but she makes
a distinction between herself and Nicola, the man-servant. Nicola has the soul
of a servant, while she has not. Louka is proud and defiant. She is ambitious.
Her aim is to marry above her rank and make a lady of herself. She has no
regard for his mistress or for Raina. She tells Nicola very boldly: "I
do defy her (Raina). I will defy her. What do I care for her?" She
is a spirited girl who hates the slavish mentality of Nicola.
Character of Louka in ''Arms and the Man'':
Louka is a shrewd
woman. She is a keen observer. She sees the pistol of the fugitive in Rain's
bedroom. She looks once at the pistol and then at the curtain and then again at
Raina. She lets Raina know that she understands that the fugitive soldier is in
her bedroom. Louka is a girl with an extraordinary wit and cleverness. She
takes the fullest advantage of Sergius's attraction to her physical charm. When
Sergius's describes Louka "witty as will as pretty' Louka at once replies,
"Gentlefolk
are all a like; you making love behind Miss Raina's back; and she doing the
same behind yours."
Louka is not
sentimental like Raina. She does not understand the higher love' of Sergius and
Raina. But she understands what real love is. Louka has no romantic illusion
about love. She loves Sergius, but her love is not romantic not something
emotional. When Sergius calls her "an abominable little clod - common
clay, with the soul of a servant", she replies with great scorn "Whatever
clay I'm made of, you're made o the same." In the last act when
Louka secures Sergius for herself, she feels that she is absolutely equal to
her employers. She now calls Raina by her name without the addition of a Miss.
She says, "I have right to call her Raina, she calls me Louka."
Louka, the maid-servant
of the Petkoffs family is a remarkable character. She is a rebel against the
society that considers human beings only in terms of money and class position.
She is Shaw's mouthpiece of conveying his democratic ideas of the essential
equality between one person and another.
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