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Plot Summary of Sons and Daughters
Sons and Daughters by J.C. de Graft is a two-act play set in the sitting-room of the Ofosu family’s home in urban Ghana. It dramatises the tension between an older, success-and-money-oriented generation and a younger generation seeking self-fulfillment in the arts. The former is notably embodied by the patriarch of the family, James Ofosu, a self-made transport businessman who has built his wealth from nothing and is determined that his children pursue “respectable,” lucrative professions. His eldest son, George, is already a doctor; another son, Kofi, is training as a chartered accountant in the UK. James now wants his younger son, Aaron, to become an engineer, and his daughter, Maanan, to become “Ghana’s first lady lawyer.”
The play opens with Aaron confiding in his friend Awere, a painter who has just won a scholarship and had a successful art exhibition. Aaron secretly wants to abandon engineering for painting. He even considers deceiving his father by pretending to study engineering in London while actually switching to art. Awere warns him against this deception.
Aaron’s sister, Maanan, a talented aspiring dancer, has been forced by her father to work as a clerk at the office of Lawyer Bonu, James’s close friend, while studying towards law school in England. Maanan reveals to Awere and Aaron that she is unhappy. According to her, Lawyer Bonu has been sexually harassing her at the office. He has been trying to embrace and kiss her, and also using his influence over her father to pressure her.
Maanan confides in her mother, Hannah, an unlettered but dignified woman, about Lawyer Bonu’s misconduct and her refusal to return to his office. Hannah tries to warn James, but when James comes home, he refuses to believe any accusation against his trusted friend. He dismisses Hannah’s concerns and accuses Maanan and Aaron of being ungrateful and disobedient. He furiously reasserts his authority over their career choices by tearing into both children’s ambitions before storming out.
Later that evening, Lawyer Bonu comes to the house believing James is out. He finds Maanan alone and openly declares his love for her. He attempts to embrace and kiss her even as she refuses. Maanan fights him off. She bites his hand and threatens him with a bottle. At this point, James, who had secretly overheard everything from upstairs, appears and catches Lawyer Bonu in the act.
James furiously expels Bonu from the house, as the lawyer offers him a bribe of a blank cheque. The family drama escalates further with the arrival of Aunt Fosuwa (James’s meddling sister) and Mrs. Bonu. Their arrival leads to a chaotic confrontation in which old grievances between Hannah and Fosuwa, and between the Bonus, come spilling out.
In the aftermath, James is shaken and forced to reflect. Hannah presses him gently but firmly to reconsider his rigid attitude towards their children’s ambitions. She argues that money and status are not the only measures of worth. George returns home to add his voice. He points out that even art can be profitable.
James is finally persuaded when a radio news bulletin announces that an American collector has bought one of Awere’s paintings for two hundred and twenty pounds. He is largely fascinated by the prospect that painting can pay. So, he gives his blessing to Aaron’s artistic ambitions.
The play ends on a note of reconciliation as James accepts Aaron’s choice. The family gathers together, with Awere toasting that everyone may find “the strength to achieve our heart’s desire.”
Background of Sons and Daughters
Sons and Daughters by J.C. de Graft was first published in 1964 by Oxford University Press. The play was written in the early 1960s, shortly after Ghana’s independence in 1957. This period saw the rise of a new African middle class. Self-made businessmen without formal higher education like James Ofosu had begun accumulating wealth and used that wealth to push their children into prestigious, Western-modelled professions like law, medicine, engineering, and accountancy as symbols of family status and respectability. Access to secondary and university education was a mark of upward mobility. But it also created a widening gulf between parents who valued professional/material success and children exposed to broader ideas about art, self-expression, and personal fulfillment.
The play brings to the forefront the tension between tradition and imported values. This is reflected literally in the play’s setting, a home furnished mostly in imported, European style, with only a single traditional item (the mahogany elephant stool). It also manifests through Maanan’s interest in traditional Ghanaian dance and drama, which she wants to study seriously and modernise, versus her father’s dismissal of dancing as disreputable.
It is reflective of the status of women in this Ghanaian society. First with Hannah who is “clearly illiterate” and never formally educated. She is portrayed with dignity, wisdom, and moral authority. She is a deliberate contrast to characters like Mrs. Bonu, who is defined by material consumption and appearances. Also relevant to this discussion is Maanan’s struggle to resist both career coercion and sexual harassment from the male figures in her life. Her resistance beggars broader questions about women’s autonomy in a modern patriarchal society.
The play is a domestic realist drama that “deals with family life and the tensions that result from the clash of two different generations in an area of rapid social change.” It resonates widely as a portrait of family and generational strain during a transformative period in postcolonial African society.
Setting of Sons and Daughters
Sons and Daughters is set in urban Ghana, in the city of Accra, as implied by references to the Arts Centre, U.A.C., and general city life of educated, professional Ghanaian families in the post-independence era. Its action takes place in the sitting-room of the Ofosu family’s house.
It unfolds in two acts, both occurring in this same sitting-room. Act Two picks up immediately where Act One ends. This means the entire play takes place within a single evening, from around five o’clock (when Act One opens) through supper time. The play is thus given a tight, unified sense of time and place typical of domestic drama.
Temporally, the play is set in contemporary 1960s Ghana, shortly after independence. It was a period of rapid social change, when a newly prosperous, self-made business class was pushing its children toward Western-style professional careers as markers of status and respectability, while a younger generation was beginning to assert individual artistic and personal ambitions.
About the Author
Joseph Coleman de Graft was a Ghanaian playwright, poet, and academic born on April 2, 1924. He directed the Ghana Drama Studio at the time Sons and Daughters was first published. He wrote several other plays performed across West and East Africa, which include Through a Film Darkly. He later became a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Educational Communication and Technology at the University of Nairobi, Kenya, where he notably wrote and produced his landmark allegorical epic play Muntu in 1975.
Following his time in Kenya, de Graft returned to his home country. He took up a position as an associate professor at the Institute of African Studies at the University of Ghana. He passed away on November 1, 1978, at the age of 54, while still lecturing at the university. At the time of his death, he was widely mourned and remembered as a monumental teacher and a father figure of modern African literature.
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