Jonathan Ichebe's Things Fall Apart

When looking back on life can one think about any choices made out of wanting that were immediately regretted because of the consequences? As a person, how does one decide what to need versus what we want? As humans, our decisions tend to be influenced by what we feel and our competitive nature. For example, if when someone with a nicer possession than someone else, it makes them want to get what the other has or something even better. It is this want that can result in unforeseen good or bad consequences. Human lives are a series of choices made so far, everyone lives with these choices for the rest of their lives. People need to be able to think through their decisions before they make them and balance their wants and needs or they may end

In the story Civil Peace by Chinua Achebe, a man named Jonathan Iwegbu had survived the civil war in Nigeria and is as thankful as can be for his family and everything else he has. One of the first thought out decisions he makes is that he decided that he wanted to keep his bike instead of giving it to the military. “It was rather a certain lack of grip and firmness in his manner. So Jonathan, suspecting he might be amenable to influence, rummaged in his raffia bag and produced the two pounds which he had been going to buy firewood which his wife, Maria, retailed to camp officials for extra stock-fish and corn meal, and got his bicycle back” (Achebe 390). From this quote, it is easy to see that Jonathan thought out the decision to get his bicycle back that he wanted. Later he ended up needing to have the bicycle to make money for his family, which made his decision even wiser. The next thought out decision he makes is one of need. “He took his bicycle to the villages around and bought fresh palm-wine which he mixed generously in his rooms with the water which had recently started running again in the public tap down the road, and opened up a bar for soldiers and other lucky people with good money” (Achebe 390-391). Jonathan made the decision to start a bar out of need as he could no longer work as a miner since the mine collapsed. Jonathan has a great family that he is more than

King Midas is consumed by his want for gold. He would do anything to get any little speck of gold, the only thing that he loved better or just as much was his daughter Marygold. One day a man appeared in his treasure room, this man had supernatural powers and was willing to grant King Midas one wish. “I am weary of collecting my treasures with so much trouble, and beholding the heap so diminutive, after I have done my best. I wish everything that I touch to be changed to gold” (Hawthorne 446). In this quote, King Midas had wished for the golden touch without thinking twice about it. The next morning King Midas had been granted the golden touch he was so consumed with his happiness over the gift he turned every flower in his garden to gold this displeased his daughter Marygold. King Midas next went down for breakfast weary of his gift. When he got to breakfast he began to eat but found that he could not and became saddened by this. Marygold being the sweet, caring child she is, ran to her father with the impulse to comfort him. “The moment the lips of Midas touched Marygold’s forehead, a change had taken place. Her sweet, rosy face, so full of affection as it had been, assumed a glittering yellow color, with yellow teardrops congealing on her checks” (Hawthorne 452). King Midas now hated his gift that he wanted and was filled with sorrow at the loss