I have heard many times in my life, "attitude is everything.  Having a positive attitude can help you see a bright side in any dreadful situation. Having a lousy attitude towards certain things can make it seem worse than what it is, but a happy outlook can carry people through situations they though they could never endure. Achebe's short story "Civil Peace  takes place in a war-torn Nigeria after a civil war. A man named Jonathan Iwegbu and his family tries to get their lives back together after the war. It is extremely difficult for them to attempt to rebuild their lives with destroyed building, no schools, no police, no phones, and no money. Irony plays a big roll in this short story, in the sense that the time that they live in are neither civil nor peaceful, even when the war comes to an end. Through all of the hardships and terrible things to happen to Jonathan's family throughout the wartime, he is still able to remain optimistic and see the good in things. I believe that Jonathan's optimistic opinions are crucial for him to be able to survive and live with the way things have changed. Jonathan's happiness and family is all he has, which is much more than most people have because of the Civil War. At the beginning of the story Achebe introduces a major part in the story, which is optimistic thinking. Throughout the story the theme is torn between Jonathan's positive thinking and a war-torn world after a civil war. The narrator says in the story that "Jonathan Iwegbu counted himself extra-ordinarily lucky.  (28) This is an extremely correct statement. All through the story Jonathan will run into something like losing one of his children, but he looks at the positive side of things and is happy that he still has his bike. He is so delighted that he has his bike because he can give people rides and make an income from it. Another quote that shows that Jonathan considers himself extra ordinarily lucky and is extremely optim