Civil Peace is not only focusing on the hardships and destruction of the war but on the new opportunities to rebuild, the story has struck many critics for its hopefulness and positive outlook. At the same time, Civil Peace demonstrates the similarities between Nigeria during the war and after the war, during periods, violence and corruption can emerge at any time.
In this comparison I will be comparing three short stories form three different cultures. In this essay I will be discussing the main themes that are mentioned in these stories. The themes that I will be demonstrating are religion, violence and nature. The three short stories that I will be studying are as follows; ‘Civil Peace’ (Chiuna Acheba), ‘The Green Leaves’ (Grace Ogot) and ‘A Handful of Dates’ (Tayeb Salih). I am going to work in this format first I make up a thesis statement related to the story then I find the quote (evidence) to support my thesis statement and finally a paragraph to explain my quote and support by looking at the author language.
You should not blame a God for bad things happen to you because suffering is part of human life either good can come from, this might be a testing or this might be punishment for your bad deeds.
“…still standing there before him”
Civil peace is about Jonathan Iwegbu and his family. They just survived the civil war and he lost his son but he also had his lucky bicycle which shows there is a sense of lost and joy. The writer shows that he is proud of his culture. “…O!Tief-man-so!” this shows that he has got an authority to represent his culture and everyman has a freedom of speech. Other example of writers culture is the way the people talk in the story i.e. “Na so!”, “Ah, missisi”, “de cry again” etc this shows that the writer wants to spread his culture and history to the reader. The writer also shows the unity in his work “the children picked mangoes near the military cemetery and sold them to soldier” wives for a few pennies – real pennies this time…” this shows that Jonathans family is very sup portative to each other and his belief in each other. The story also has a religious theme because in the story Jonathan keep on saying “Nothing Puzzle God” this describes that all this suffering and pain that they are going through Jonathan blames God for everything indirectly. He thinks that God don’t care about anything but a miracle happens when he finds out that his house was “…still standing” he was shocked because he was wrong about blaming God. “Nothing puzzles God” this has two meaning either blame God or thanks God. This shows that Jonathan was a religious person because he involves God in everything.
You should not steal because it against the religion and you should thank God for whatever you have.
“…He dipped his hand into the first pocket”
The Green Leaves was about a man who betrayed his community for his intention of stealing the money but if seen from his point of view he wanted to help his family. The author uses lots of native dialect to put interesting effects in the story i.e. “piti, piti, piti piti” don’t understand this word but it stand out and it repetitive. The writer uses rhetorical question “Why should you disturb a dead body” Nyagar speaks in choir. Grace Ogot uses “Taboo” inappropriate language, which shows a theme of violence “these bastards took my six bulls”. The characters are very boring except Nyagar and his wife because at the end when she saw dead body of Nyagar she was so sad and song in the end this shows a cultural theme. The writer also describes the African culture in the story. He describes the relationship between black and white people living in Africa. The black and white people had there own law. There is a religious theme mentioned in the story “the ground and stretched out his arms and legs as if giving up the ghost” and “let not the enemy die in your hands. His spirit would rest upon our village…” this shows that the people didn’t wanted the thief die in their hand because as Omoro said that their village will be cursed, which shows they are superstitious and they believe in God and its traditional. They called white man because they didn’t trust them.
You should not be greedy, share what you have with other because if you share God gives more.
“…land belongs to my grandfather ever since Gods creation”.
A Handful of Dates was based on a boy who used to respect his grandfather and liked him. The boy was very proud of his family but when he finds out that he was not a good person. The opening paragraphs represents that the story is personal ‘I’ and the character is telling his past. There is a theme of religion in this story because it has clear imagery in opening paragraph “I would go to the mosque to learn Koran” this is based on Islam religion , Muslims people has to do it. The writer has used irony in the story “…recite the chapter of merciful…” and on the other hand the grandfather is not being merciful to Masood. The writer is surrounding the history of Muslims people culture and traditional. Culture and historical influences on a text are so important because the story starts off with culture and religion and ends in culture and religion theme. The writer also mentions the nature and religion theme together in the story “…land belongs to my grandfather ever since Gods creation”. The story ends in greediness and the boy finds out about the real image of the grandfather.
These three short stories involved the surrounding of history, culture and traditional themes. These were the main element of the stories. The other themes that were discussed in this essay were greediness which involved in all three stories. Civil Peace about stealing the money, Green Leaves intention of stealing the money and finally Handful of Dates old man tricks Masood for the money.
