27 pages • 54 minutes read
Chinua AchebeCivil Peace
Fiction | Short Story | Adult | Published in 1971A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Character Analysis
Jonathan Iwegbu
Jonathan Iwegbu is the optimistic protagonist of the story. Depicted as hard-working, industrious, and resilient, he maintains a positive outlook in the face of adversity. Despite the loss of his son, he is grateful for what he has. His character represents Nigeria’s hard-working, honest people after that nation’s civil war. Jonathan Iwegbu and the people like him are the future of the country. His “happy survival” mentality, fueled by his faith in God, helps him through difficult times. He is thankful for his blessings. Even after tragedy, he has an impulse to carry on. He does so by employing his bike as a taxi and starting a palm wine business. Besides being the light of hope for his family, he also shares his philosophy of tragedy with his neighbors. He says, “Let it go where everything else goes. Nothing puzzles God” (88).
Maria Iwegbu
Maria Iwegbu is the wife of Jonathan Iwegbu and mother to four children; her youngest son died in the war. Like her husband, she is industrious and hard-working, a strong and loving mother, and a caring wife. After the war, she starts making Akara balls for neighbors to make money and help the family. After getting robbed, she remains resilient and focused on her work and the future. Achebe portrays her as a static and somewhat flat character. She does not evolve in the story, and the narration gives little insight into her inner life. Rather than describing evolving characters against a static backdrop, “Civil Peace” portrays relatively static characters against a chaotic backdrop. Maria and Jonathan often demonstrate their characters by not acting, that is, by staying grounded and focused amid social and economic turmoil.
The Army Officer
The Army officer tries to commandeer Jonathan’s bike for a supposedly urgent military action. He, along with the robbers, shows how during times of war and postwar instability, moral order can break down. The narrator describes him as dressed in rags with mismatched shoes and a hand-drawn insignia of rank. Jonathan judges him to be an imposter because of a lack of grip and firmness in his demeanor, and he gives the soldier two pounds to get rid of him. The soldier foreshadows the incident with the thieves at the climax of the story. Achebe portrays the military forces that are supposed to protect the population as nearly indistinguishable from the society’s criminals.
The Thieves
The leader of the gang of robbers knocks on the family’s door and brazenly introduces himself as a thief. He speaks in pidgin English, representing a hybrid identity drawn from Nigeria’s many cultural influences. He is confident and mocks Jonathan and his family for their helplessness. When Jonathan tells him he doesn’t have 100 pounds and will give him 20 instead, his fellow robbers insist on entering to ransack the house and find the money. As their leader, he shuts them down.
The leader also delivers the lines that demonstrate the irony of the violent peace after the war: “No Civil War again. This time na Civil Peace. No, be so?” (87). The peace is not civil at all. It is nearly as dangerous as the war. The thief’s followers want to get the full 100 pounds from the Iwegbu family. They represent not only greed but how discord can reign in criminal groups. They are selfish and want as much as they can get, but the leader overrules them. The story is written from a third-person limited perspective, so the reader encounters the thieves from inside Jonathan’s house. They bang on the door but are never seen. Achebe develops characterization through the sounds of their voices and automatic weapons fire.
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By Chinua Achebe
