What are you willing to do to survive? Maybe more than you think. In Ray Bradbury’s short story “There Will Come Soft Rains” the main character, an automated house, just goes through its every-day routine. But, what will happen when it faces something far beyond its limited control? Additionally, in “Civil Peace” by Chinua Achebe, Jonathan, the father of the family in the story, is stuck facing the aftermath of a destructive civil war. Luckily, he has quite a few things going his way regardless of various the trials he, and his family, face. Desperate times call for desperate measures, but these efforts may end up being a hinderance rather than a help.

War and destruction are inevitable, and the mess after the fact can be horrible. the Question …show more content…
Both of these characters have faced extreme adversity and have done everything in their power to survive it. However, for the house, it’s attempts of self-preservation would be in vain. A great fire had started in the house and the desperate attempts made by the house would be for nothing. “The house tried to save itself. Doors sprang tightly shut, but the windows were broken by the heat and the wind blew and sucked upon the fire” (Bradbury 290). Despite the attempts made by the house the fire was still victorious. Towards the end the house was manic; ”In the kitchen, an instant before the rain of fire and timber, the stove could be seen making breakfasts at a psychopathic rate, ten dozen eggs, six loaves of toast, twenty dozen bacon strips, which, eaten by the fire started the stove working again, hysterically hissing!” (Bradbury 292). Although there was nothing to be done the house continued to provide for the family that no longer resided within its walls. As for Jonathan, even though he was robbed in the night, and no one came to help he still endured. In fact the next morning Jonathan told a group people: “‘I count it as nothing’ he told his sympathizers,his eyes on the rope he was tying. ‘what is egg-rasher? Did I depend on it last week? Or is it greater than other things that went with the war? I say, let egg-rasher perish in the flames! Let it go where everything else has gone. Nothing puzzles God’” (Achebe 364). This display of faculty shows that Jonathan is truly a man of enduring