J C DeGraft's "Sons and Daughters" : Between the lines

So this was actually an assignment that I was given two weeks to put together, but did in a period of two hours because of procrastination and I thought I had an extra week to hand it in. I'd studied the book back in Achimota but doing it again in University, especially having to examine it from a different angle really made me see what J C DeGraft sought to do in his book. The plot is simple, Aaron and Maanan are unhappy about the career choices that their father has chosen for them, they try explaining it to him but he doesn't want to budge. If you actually think about the book though, you see that it's more than just a play, but J C DeGraft is seeking to make a statement and highlight certain issues in the Ghanaian society today. Lots of people look down on the arts and don't see it as something that can be taken as a proper career. I think J C DeGraft is addressing that, looking at the issue from both sides i.e. the fact that things pertaining to the arts are not really given much recognition in Ghana and is not always lucrative, and on the other side, the fact that one should always follow their dreams. Anyways, so I thought I should post it because I think everything I can say about people pursuing their careers of choice especially when they are met with opposition has been said in the assignment.

oh by the way, I'm yet to see what I got in the paper, but hopefully it'll be good :)


SYNOPSIS

Aaron and Maanan are two of the children of James and Hannah Ofosu. There is tension in the Ofosu household because James Ofosu wants Aaron and Maanan to pursue engineering and law respectively. He is especially sure of his selected career choices for them as he chose business and medicine for his other two sons and they are thriving in their fields. His career choices for Maanan and Aaron are not going as smoothly and they want to take up dancing and painting instead. Maanan is especially unhappy about being pressured into doing law because she works in the same office as her father’s friend Lawyer Bonu who has been making advances at her and also polluting her father’s mind against her selected career choice of dancing, and planting ideas in James’ head suggesting that something might be going on with her and Aaron’s friend Awere. Maanan explains the situation to her mother Hannah, who sympathises, and when they try to explain the situation to James, he blows up and sees it as a conspiracy to get him to give in to Maanan’s wishes to become a dancer. Later during the day, Lawyer Bonu comes to visit Maanan, professes his love for her and subsequently makes a move on her. a struggle ensues in which Maanan bites lawyer Bonu’s hand, causing him to shout in pain. The commotion downstairs attracts James to the scene. He is shocked to see with his own eyes cold hard evidence of the serious allegations that have been made against his dear friend. James sacks Lawyer Bonu from his house. George, one of their older sons, now a successful doctor, walks in as James and Hannah are discussing the events of the day. George serves as a voice of reason and helps to soften James’ mind towards Aaron and Maanan’s selected career choices, pointing out that he happened to like the career James chose for him. George also informs James that Awere has started to make money from his paintings and has sold one for two hundred and twenty pounds.  Feeling defeated, James gives in and decides to let Maaanan and Awere pursue their selected career choices.

UNIVERSAL HUMAN CONDITION

The play reflects the mindsets of many Ghanaians back when the play was written and even today. It reflects the lax and perhaps small-minded attitude of many Ghanaians towards the arts. Many Ghanaians feel that for one to make it in life, one must be a lawyer, doctor, engineer etc. Recognition is given to professions like law, medicine, business etc to the neglect of professions like playwriting, acting dancing etc. Many Ghanaians take pride in talking about their successful son/daughter who is a lawyer, doctor, engineer etc especially to the envy of those around them. subjects in the arts are regarded as hobbies and nothing more. To many Ghanaians, to pursue such careers would be regarded as disastrous. J C Degraft explains both sides of the situation by adding the undeniable fact that professions in the arts are not known to bring in as much money as some of the others, especially in Ghana where the market is not as big as outside so we can sympathise with James by perhaps seeing things as “just wanting to protect them.” This view, though understandable is not the best because it limits one’s thinking and drives one to work because of money and not because of passion or interest in the profession. The play also opposes the view that educated people are superior to all others and can do no wrong. Lawyer Bonu is the most educated person in the play, but has very shaky moral values. This is shown when he deliberately pollutes James’ mind towards Maanan pursuing a dancing career, when he knows perfectly well there is nothing wrong with it, and also makes advances towards her. in contrast, Hannah, though illiterate, is one of the more sound-minded people in the play. She sees things from both sides and serves as a voice of reason. Education is highly important in one’s professional life and in one’s personal life as well but not being educated does not in any way mean one is a bad person. Indeed, there are many who would have wished for any education but were to able to gain one because of circumstances, and also, there are many who have had little or no education, such as James Ofosu, but have been able to make something of themselves

CHARACTERISATION

James Ofosu is one of the main characters in the play, Sons and Daughters, by J C Degraft. James has not had much of an education, but through hard work, has managed to provide a decent life for his wife and four children. James believes that any profession one engages in must bring in money. One’s interest in the profession is secondary. This is shown through his pressuring of Aaron and Maanan to pursue engineering and, despite the fact that they want to go into  painting and dancing respectively. To James, the sole importance of pursuing any profession is to bring in money and nothing else. He does not believe in or support any profession that will not bring in money and believes that ‘money makes the world go round.’ James also believes in the importance of education and looks up to Lawyer Bonu because of his education and solid professional background despite his shaky moral values. Because of jame’ admiration of people who have had an education and a solid professional background, James allows himself to be manipulated by Lawyer Bonu and seems to follow Lawyer Bonu’s advice blindly and will not hear or listen to anything negative about his dear friend. Despite all his faults, it is undeniable that James Ofosu’s heart is in the right place and all he really wants is to see his children succeed and that all his toils have not been in vain. James represents the small-minded attitude of many Ghanaians who believe that the only way to succeed is to pursue careers that are highly respected by society and pursuing careers in the arts like dancing, music art etc is a sure way to fail

I personally feel J C DeGraft uses his play, Sons and Daughters as a platform to highlight certain issues in the Ghanaian society. I think J C DeGraft is calling on all individuals, especially the youth to pursue their careers of interest.  The house of the Ofosus is an example of a typical Ghanaian household and the problems the Ofosu’s face are quite common. J C Degraft, himself a playwright, uses his play to inform Ghanaians that going into professions like law, business, medicine, etc are not the only paths that lead to success, and if one has an interest in any the arts, such as dancing, writing, music, etc one can also choose to pursue those as a career. I feel that either directly, or indirectly, J C Degraft in Sons and Daughters has served as an inspiration, and perhaps a mouthpiece for many aspiring writers, dancers, musicians and all those who want to pursue careers that are belittled by the society. The play pulls and encourages individuals to follow their dreams no matter what the circumstances. J C DeGraft offers one final word of encouragement in the last line of his play when Awere put it “…………………may we each be given the strength to achieve our heart’s desire on our work.”


Mimi Ansaa Koranteng

“OKAY SO I’VE BROKEN YOUR HEART, WHAT DO YOU WANT ME TO DO????”

          Hearts don’t break; they pump so get over it!!!

On quite a few occasions girls have been the victims of a broken heart due to the actions or inactions of some of the male species. I observed that a lot of the guys that put the girls in these unfortunate conditions are unconcerned about the effect it has on the person who was once the object of their affection (or at least, seen to be). This encouraged me to talk to a few guys to find out the reasons behind their indifference to seeing girls hurt. There have been so many different situations in which girls have been hurt, whether, it’s a boyfriend of five years whom you lost your virginity to, or the guy who just pretended to like you for whatever reason, hit-and-run etc. I asked a few guys about it and came out with some interesting results.

*These are verbatim quotes that were written as they were said with very little editing.

Kwabena says ‘we’re going out, and I decide that I don’t feel the same way about you anymore, so let’s break up, I’ve broken your heart, what do you want me to do? The whole point is for us to move on, and there’s no moving on if I care that much because if I cared that much, it means we have to go back out because honestly, you don’t want to break up. The only way for me to help you is to go back out with you again,… and be nice…. and I’m not ready to do that, so what do you want me to do? So the only option is to act like I don’t care. Because sometimes when we break up, it’s bashing the guy, it’s bashing the guy that the girl is crying but we can’t honestly do anything about it because we’re going back to square one…..’

On the issue of girls being used by guys, especially with the ever popular ‘I gave him my virginity’ Kwabena says ‘Look, let me tell you, these days eh, boys are foolish, but of late girls are even worse than boys. Chale, prevention, just don’t open your legs till he puts that ring on your finger.’

Jeremy feels it could be one of three things ‘either he never liked her in the first place, his feelings faded, or it was mere lust.’

Ekow explains that the reason that guys have a hard time understanding when girls are upset is because guys are just not very emotionally sensitive. ‘If you want to talk to me, and you’re crying, I will just concentrate on the fact that you are crying and won’t really listen to what you have to say’

Kofi, who was amused by the question replied ‘ah, they don’t care, because it’s not their heart, if it’s their heart, then they will care.’ When probed further, he said ‘even if they care, they won’t show it because he has to be ‘the guy.’  

Ben had an interesting take on this issue. He felt that if the guy is close to his mother and has sisters, he will generally show respect for women, but otherwise, if all his role models are men, he wouldn’t care, or ‘maybe he’s just an idiot.‘

Some guys are convinced that the girls are the problem, and they bring the hurt upon themselves because of pressure they put on the guy or doing things to hurt guys, so, therefore feel the girls are basically asking for the hurt through the things they do. Be it through gold-digging, lying, cheating, but the thing most guys complained about was pressure and emotionally sensitive nature of girls which some found a bit overbearing.

Frank feels ‘girls are evil people so we hurt them to get back at them.  They lie, they mistake your kindness for weakness.  Sometimes, they're all over you so you just do things to hurt them to get back at them.’

James explains that sometimes we girls put too much pressure on the boys ‘dabiaa na I love you, why don’t you call me, come and see me, some boys don’t like that kind of pressure, so if you always act that way, some boys will just act cold towards you.’  

On the ‘sorry’ issue, Ryan says ‘I know I've done something wrong but I don't call you to tell you I'm sorry, but you call me or text me to tell me, and then I apologise. Then you tell me it's too late, and I'm only saying sorry because you've complained. Then the next time I do something, I apologise, and then you tell me I've already done it, and I don’t mean it, so why am I saying sorry. So what do you want me to do? Do you want me to go left or right? So next time I do something intentionally to hurt your feelings, I won’t say anything, I'll just be in the middle.' When asked why he would do something deliberately to hurt a girl, he replies, because ‘you've done something to hurt my feelings’

I was given a scenario in which a girl was visited by a boy in a car, who bought her a few gifts. Not too long after that she left her boyfriend (who did not have a car) saying, he did not seem to be going anywhere in life, and started getting involved with the guy with the car(Let’s call him Car Boy). So Car Boy analyses the situation and thinks, ‘so if I didn’t have the ride and the money, would she still be with me?’ so he has his way with her and leaves her. In this situation, is it right to say the girl brought it upon herself? Is this supporting the view of guys that girls are ‘evil’? Who do you feel is the bad person, and who is the victim?

               

                Calvin felt it was entirely the fault of girls.(Sounding just a little bit like an activist for male supremacy)’ You see, girls are very wicked and heartless and have committed a lot of atrocities towards boys, so in order to avoid being victimized, we hurt them before they can hurt us, especially, Legon girls. When they come here and their eyes open. They stand on the balcony, and they see the cars and they want it. They decide to go for guys who don’t care about them at all; guys who just want to have sex with them, just for the material gain. We see it coming so we hurt them before they can hurt us. To avoid being hurt, we put our feelings aside and act like robots.’

Roger simply says ‘girls eh, hmm, you people…..’ obviously at a loss for words.

I also realized that a lot of the ‘not caring’ is as a result of them just not being concerned about the girl, or the situation. I have observed from a few breakups that guys have an easier time moving on. If the girl is the one doing the breaking up, she usually seems torn by the decision, and in some cases, goes to ask the guy for a come-back, which usually irritates the  guy, and ultimately does not work. In cases where the guy is the one who has done the breaking up, it usually means he has taken the time to analyse the situation, weighed the pros and cons and come to the decision that he does not want to be in the relationship. Basically, it was over for him before he ended it, so he had a head start in the process of getting over it.

Nii feels “guys don't care about hurting girls they don't like/love. The fact that they might be intimately involved with a girl doesn't make them feel obliged to show love or affection towards the girl. Chances are, if a guy hurts a girl the girl either brought herself and the guy just ceased the opportunity to mess around or the guy probably did like the girl but somewhere along the line she wasn't really who he expected her to be, and could care less about dealing with her drama.”

Ian feels the guy probably doesn’t care because ‘he’s moved on, so he’s not bothered by it anymore’

            Stanley from the US, from his observations feels that a lot of the girls that get hurt by boys do so because of their desire to be with the ‘bad boy’, who have no intention of serious commitment and end up hurting the girls. Basically, by going out with those kind of boys, they have it coming. He says “it’s such a hard question; I don't always think its guys that hurt girls I think girls hurt themselves at times.  They do this by choosing the wrong type of guys

 a lot of times girls want the guy who is fun and exciting and not the guy who is a little safer. you know, but when guys are at fault they do it because of insecurity, hurt her before she hurts me type of thing,

 get out before I get too attached.’

Some guys actually disagree with that assertion that they don’t care, and feel it’s more them hiding their feelings.

Seth says ‘As much as all men/boys try to hide it they actually feel a little amount of guilt when they hurt others, especially the opposite sex. What exactly they do with the guilty feeling is what makes the difference. You see if we think you deserve to have known better and you got hurt in the end;its your fault, not mine. Would you blame the examiner if you got an answer wrong just because you failed to read instructions? So the underlying issue is that we might all feel guilty but depending on the situation in which the girl got hurt or the state of the mind of the boy; we shall never know whether it was intentional or not.

                Jeremy also says ‘I don’t think I can help you there because I don’t believe guys don’t care when they hurt women anymore than women care if they hurt someone. Remember, a lot of what guys say is pretence, but they do feel the hurt as well, even if they did the dumping. Often they are after the physical, although it may be misconstrued as an emotional attachment, but even under those circumstances, they still would rather not hurt anyone because they feel it too. ‘

                Whether it has to do with the male ego not wanting to show a softer side, or taking revenge for the ‘atrocities’ of girls, or girls being too clingy and emotional, girls have suffered a lot in the hands of guys. The purpose of this article is to find out why so both sexes can come to a resolution on the problem. A lot of guys have complained about being victimized by girls, so in the next article, I will be talking to girls to find out why they have made some boys so bitter and feel the need to hit back at them.

                As you can see, there are a lot of different opinions on this issue. I do not feel there is any single correct answer, rather, different ways of looking at it. Perhaps both sexes expect the worst of each other, and when the worst is what comes out, we do not understand why. Are guys heartless, do girls bring the hurt upon themselves by the things they do? Also is this ‘hurting’ business as a result of ‘I’ll hurt you before you hurt me’ on both sides? Shouldn’t both males and females put aside their prejudices against each other and learn to trust and care for each other a lot more? Is the whole issue about them not caring or more about not showing their emotions? You decide. My name is Mimi Koranteng, thank you very much for reading.

INTRODUCTION

Now, by the Grace of God  I'm done with school and have more time on my hands so I can start to take this blog seriously. I guess the purpose of this post is to basically give you guys an idea of what to expect from this blog. So I think and daydream a LOT. Why did this happen? What did I do to cause it? what can I do to make it better? And more importantly, what can I learn from it? I think about lots of issues happening in the world, especially Africa; why all these wars? I believe there’s a general cause but what is it? Bad leadership perhaps? Or could we also blame the attitudes of the people. (one example that comes to my mind is that of a particularly rich and so freaking potentially successful country that is unfortunately, QUITE  messed up and it’s sad because it should be nowhere near where it is right now). I think about my dear country Ghana too. We may not have as much mineral wealth and resources as some African countries but I want you guys to think about this for a second, under Kwame Nkrumah’s leadership, Ghana had the second highest per capita income in Africa, surpassed only by South Africa. That shows that its not only about what you have, but what you do with what you have and also supports the above hypothesis that bad leadership could be to blame for Africa's troubles. I think about everything being politicized in Ghana. Virtually everything is linked with the NPP and the NDC (or as Shasha Marley would say, boom-boom and waa-waa lol). Even though, I’m sympathetic to one particular party, I believe we should stop the blame game and take responsibility for our actions, and sometimes those of others, sitting around complaining won’t do JACK to change anything. I think about countries like Mexico too. Can the drug war be stopped? And to the more controversial question, should marijuana be legalized, because honestly, people have easy access to weed so really, what difference would it make?  I write poems as well. poetry serves as a form of release for me, helps me get out my feelings. Lots of my poems tend to be sad, but chale whatever man, (giving The Hand) I mean, I don’t feel what I’m writing how can I expect you to? I’m quite happy now so I’ll try to write more happy ones, currently working on (okay thinking about) a poem called smile J. I think about religion as well. I think about my faith, Christianity. Why the decline? Why don’t people believe or want to believe? Why the stereotype about Christians being boring nerds who have no life, what can be done to change it and make people more eager to give their lives to Christ? I think about Islam; I have nothing negative to say about the muslims in Ghana, but some of those outside aren’t exactly doing a great job of showing us that “muslims are peace loving peoples’ (I mean pardon me if I’m wrong but I don’t see how bombing and killing people promotes that ) . I don’t read the Qur’an so I actually don’t know what exactly is said about such violent acts. I believe (and want to believe I’m right) that those in Ghana have got it right.

A little bit about myself, I like to think I’m a nice person J. However, I suck at being fake so if I don’t like you or you irritate to me, I’m usually horrible at hiding it. I tend to worry a lot sometimes, really trying to stop. I think I’m just scared of making mistakes and regret.  I’m usually either really interested in something or I just can’t be bothered about it. I tend to be absent minded sometimes, usually when I’m not interested in what is going on, I just start to think about random things. I can’t stand being bored and sitting at one place and I hate, hate, hate monotony. I’m a little shy as well, another thing I’m trying to stop. I get self conscious sometimes so I like to be around people I feel comfortable with so most of my friends tend to be quite crazy, ESPECIALLY my male ones. Another thing I am different, I spent much of my life trying to be like everyone else, trying to fit in, but I’ve realized, that’s not what I was born to do, so I have learnt to accept, embrace my individuality. I hate getting into arguments with people, especially unnecessary ones so I try to stay away from people I feel I won’t get along with and I believe in being civil and mature about differences. If someone annoys you SAY it, but be nice about it because I’ve discovered that with lots of people, it’s how you say it that makes all the difference.  Most importantly, I am a Christian. I would be nowhere near where I am right now without God (for the sake of clarity, Jesus’ Father, I really don’t think that when we say god, we all refer to the same entity). I have been blessed beyond measure and I believe that with God, there’s nowhere left to go, but up. So I hope you like this blog, I’d really like to know what you think, please feel free to leave comments and as soon as I set up an e-mail, it shall be communicated to you so you can reach me personally.

Stay blessed all, and Enjoy your day J

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