Civil Peace

The setting is Enugu, Nigeria, after the war. Enugu was a stronghold of the rebellion, and its recapture by the Nigerian government effectively ended the Biafran secession. It was recaptured on October 4, 1967, and eventually reabsorbed into Nigeria. It is the place where Jonathan begins to rebuild his home and his life with his family. By setting the story in the central city of the Biafran independence movement, Achebe highlights the theme of Civil War and Recovery. Jonathan is surprised that his house is still standing because those around it are destroyed, evidence of heavy fighting in the city. Furthermore, he regards the survival of five of the six people in his family as a miracle, again suggesting that the war was close to them even though Jonathan apparently didn’t fight. The heavy presence of soldiers in the city even after the end of the conflict shows how strategically important the city is to the Nigerian government. Jonathan and his family make most of their income by providing services to these soldiers, and the story does not suggest they resent it. They seem to focus on surviving the conflict and rebuilding afterward rather than the ideologies and causes at stake in the war.