What effect does the war setting have on jonathan’s thoughts and actions? he gains confidence that the officers have the best intentions for the citizens and offers to them. he learns that he must be patient with the military, and he does as they request. he becomes suspicious of devious people and takes charge of what is important to him. the bicycle had a little history of its own. one day at the height of the war it was commandeered “for urgent military action.” hard as its loss would have been to him he would still have let it go without a thought had he not had some doubts about the genuineness of the officer. . so jonathan, suspecting he might be amenable to influence, rummaged in his raffia bag and produced the two pounds with 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. that night he buried it in the little clearing in the bush where the dead of the camp, including his own youngest son, were buried. –“civil peace,” chinua achebe