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Act 2 Summary of Sons and Daughters
Act 2 of Sons and Daughters is exactly as it was at the end of Act 1. James has just stormed out of the room and banged the door after him. The action picks up immediately, without any time gap. Aaron turns to his mother and sister in bewilderment, asking what all this is about. He’s never known his father to be so angry. Hannah reassures him it will be all right; she’s seen James in worse tempers before and he’s always gotten over it in time.
Maanan, however, is despairing. She sits down and says she doesn’t know how she’ll be able to face her father again in this house. He seems angrier with her than with anyone else, and she fears he will “hate her all his life” for this, even though she only told the truth. Hannah tries to console her. She explains that James’s reaction is understandable in a way. It’s hard for a man to suddenly believe that a friend he’s trusted and relied on for years could be secretly pursuing his daughter. She reassures Maanan and Aaron that, after this “violent storm,” James will go into his room and think things over quietly, and that some good may yet come of it.
George, the eldest son and a doctor, enters swinging a tennis racquet, dressed in white tennis clothes. He is easy and confident in his manner. He greets everyone breezily but immediately senses something is wrong and asks where their father is. Hannah tells him James is upstairs and suggests George go speak to him.
However, both Maanan and Aaron object. Maanan warns that George will “only make things worse,” and Aaron backs her up sharply, telling George not to see their father right now. George turns on Aaron and demands to know why his reputation in the family has apparently fallen so low. A testy exchange follows in which Aaron and Maanan both accuse George of having become “smug and conceited” lately. They complain that his status as a doctor has made their father feel too important and self-satisfied, which they say is part of why James is now behaving so unreasonably. George is stung and confused by the pile-on. He decides not to stay and prepares to leave for his tennis game, though Hannah persuades him to at least return later on his way back from the hospital.
With George gone, Hannah turns her attention to household matters. She calls for the maidservant Adwoa to check on the stew. She then gently scolds Aaron and Maanan for speaking to their elder brother the way they did, telling them she doesn’t want it repeated, though she doesn’t ask for excuses. Both agree. Hannah gives Maanan detailed instructions about supper before going upstairs for her bath.
Left alone, Maanan and Aaron sit quietly. Aaron idly goes to the radio and tries to tune it, though the panel light comes on with no sound. Maanan takes up the newspaper to read, then picks up Awere’s box of oil colours, which he had left behind earlier, and asks Aaron what happened to Awere since the box is still there. Aaron explains that Awere is out doing some night painting, and that on their way back from the Post Office they’d spotted James’s car parked outside, so Awere got scared off from coming in. Aaron then remembers he needs to go clean the car’s carburettor before his father needs it the next morning, and exits through the street door, leaving Maanan alone in the room with the radio playing silently in the background.
For about a minute the room is still. Then, Lawyer Bonu enters. He pauses when he sees Maanan sitting in the chair, unaware of his presence. He moves towards her quietly. Maanan swings around and stands to face him. Lawyer Bonu claims he didn’t know anyone was in the room and asks for her mother. He learns Hannah is in her bath. He sits down to wait and then decides to fix himself a whisky. He sends Maanan to fetch iced soda.
When Maanan returns with the soda, Lawyer Bonu tops up his drink and, as she turns to leave, he restrains her. He insists that she stay while he finishes his drink. He then moves in close and begins to seduce her. He apologises for his conduct at the office earlier that day, calls her “hard-hearted,” and tells her he thinks about her constantly. Maanan repeatedly rebuffs him: she refuses to look at him, refuses his touch, tells him plainly that she doesn’t like him and doesn’t want anything from him. She challenges him bitterly for daring to say such things under her own father’s roof, and for lying to her father about her and about Awere.
Lawyer Bonu admits he lied to James because he couldn’t bear seeing Maanan treat “that boy” (Awere) — “nothing but a mere student” — so much better than him. As Maanan tries to walk away in contempt, Lawyer Bonu physically blocks her path. He refuses to let her pass, and declares he intends to kiss her. In the ensuing struggle, Maanan’s hair and cloth are disarranged as he throws his arms around her. She knocks a glass from his hand, and when he continues to grab at her, she bites his hand hard enough to make him yell in pain.
But Lawyer Bonu is undeterred. He moves towards her “almost like an animal about to spring on its prey,” muttering that he must kiss her. Maanan threatens to smash his face with a bottle she snatched from a trolley if he touches her again.
At this exact moment, James enters “unbelievably calm.” Bonu is surprised to see James standing there. He exclaims “Jesus Christ in heaven!” — to which James responds that Bonu shouldn’t take the Lord’s name in vain. He even asks pointedly whether Bonu is a Christian. Bonu is too stunned to answer.
James asks why Bonu did this when he trusted him. Bonu stammers that he meant no harm and thought James was out; James reveals he could hear Bonu’s raised voice all the way from upstairs. James tells him he has deceived him and humiliated him in front of his own family.
Bonu sits down and declares himself ruined. James orders him to leave the house. When Bonu asks what James intends to do about it, James refuses to say, and warns him not to “cross-examine” him. Bonu begs James to remember their friendship. Then, in a last humiliating attempt to save himself, he pulls out his chequebook and offers James money, telling him to name any amount. This only enrages James further. He angrily rejects the bribe.
Hannah rushes down at the sound of shouting. James tells her to inform Bonu that he wants nothing from him. According to him, he had admired and trusted him, sought his advice on his children’s education, and believed him to be sincere but Bonu made a fool of him. He calls for Aaron, who enters from outside wiping his hands on an oily rag.
James makes Aaron confirm publicly what has happened. Aaron admits that he had lied to Bonu earlier, telling him James wasn’t home, because he “simply couldn’t bear the thought” of Bonu coming into the house after the afternoon’s earlier confrontation over Maanan.
At this point, Aunt Fosuwa rushes in breathless. She claims Aaron is “a bad boy” and that she has been watching and knows “who’s waiting outside” (implying, wrongly, that Awere is hiding in the garage with untoward intentions towards Maanan). She accuses Aaron of lying when he denies anything improper has happened, and warns James that “that boy Awere” is trouble. She completely misreads the situation, since the real culprit is Lawyer Bonu, standing right there.
James is now confused. He presses Aaron to confirm whether “that boy” (meaning Bonu, though Fosuwa means Awere) was in the sitting-room. Aaron confirms yes. As James’s anger mounts again, Bonu attempts to slip towards the door, but Fosuwa, still misunderstanding the entire situation and desperately trying to protect her own social connections, blocks his way. She begs James to forgive Maanan and not humiliate Lawyer Bonu, at one point even suggesting that James actually wanted Bonu to marry Maanan (as a second wife) and that this is why he’d sent her to work at Bonu’s office in the first place.
James is astonished at this suggestion and flatly denies ever wanting any such thing. Fosuwa persists. She argues that a rich man like Bonu could easily support two wives.
At this point, Mrs. Bonu enters. The visibly unhappy woman is shown into the house by the maidservant. She has arrived, by her own account, “just at the right moment,” and immediately grasps the situation. She turns to Fosuwa to clarify whether Fosuwa has actually been scheming to make her husband take Maanan as a second wife. Hannah firmly denies that anyone in the Ofosu household has any such intention. Fosuwa, however, confirms that yes, she has been thinking exactly that. She argues that Lawyer Bonu is rich enough to support two wives and that if he wasn’t satisfied with Mrs. Bonu, that’s precisely why he’d be interested in Maanan.
James is further outraged to learn that Fosuwa apparently already suspected Bonu’s interest in Maanan all along. Mrs. Bonu, on her part, defends her marriage. She insists her husband will not be taking a second wife. Fosuwa mocks her contemptuously and questions whether Mrs. Bonu (who, unlike Fosuwa, has never been married more than once) even qualifies as a “real woman” by traditional standards. James finally shuts down the argument entirely. He declares firmly that Maanan will not marry Bonu. He orders both Bonu and Mrs. Bonu to leave and settle their marital disputes elsewhere. They exit.
James then turns on his sister Fosuwa. He tells her she has caused enough trouble to last him the rest of his life and that he wants to be left alone with his wife and children. Fosuwa is hurt at being cast out after “all the years” she has served the family. She casts a hateful look at Hannah and storms out.
After a long uncomfortable silence, Hannah asks James what he now intends to do about Maanan. A deflated James says he doesn’t know; that she can please herself. Hannah presses him again about Maanan. He admits he no longer knows if he can trust his own judgment after everything that’s happened. When Hannah calls Maanan in, James cannot bring himself to look his daughter in the eye for a long moment before finally apologising: “I am sorry about what happened. I should have known better.” Maanan exits at this point.
James is now trying to tune the radio. He bitterly reflects on how much stock he’d put in a “well-educated man” and “a lawyer to boot” and this is how it turned out. Hannah observes that going to school or college clearly doesn’t automatically make a man honest, and points out that James, despite his lack of formal education, should have known this from his own life experience dealing with people. This launches into an extended philosophical debate between them about what really makes people trustworthy and important. James argues that the world is run by educated, credentialed men who deserve trust and respect because of their training, while Hannah challenges him, asking whether he would ever let his children become teachers, a profession he dismisses outright as underpaid and unimportant.
He has clearly contradicted his own argument about “men who know.” He grows frustrated and confused by his own inconsistency. He eventually admits that what he really wants for his children, underneath all his talk of prestige and professions, is simply for them to make money. He insists there is nothing wrong with that, since it was his own hard work and money-making that built the family’s comfortable life.
George enters partway through this argument. Hannah asks him to speak with his father, and gradually lays out the day’s troubles for him. James recounts his grievances. The first is Maanan’s refusal to become a lawyer, which he says he now doesn’t mind, since it will make her happy. The second is Aaron’s refusal to become an engineer, which he still resents as “impudence.” Hannah and George gently push back. George observes that if Aaron seriously objects to engineering, perhaps he should be allowed to pursue what he genuinely wants. He notes that, unlike Aaron, he had always personally wanted to be a doctor, so there was no real conflict in his own case. James becomes defensive. He insists that if he was good enough to choose George’s profession, he’s good enough to choose Aaron’s too.
James balks at the idea of his son being “a mere painter,” but Hannah tells him that money isn’t everything, that James himself built his success from nothing through hard work rooted in genuine ability. According to her, what should really count is affection for one’s children and friends, and respect for people as human beings “no matter whether they are porters or drivers’ mates or teachers”. She points out that they have seen firsthand, through Lawyer Bonu’s conduct that very day, exactly where blind respect for professional status and money can lead. James insists he doesn’t want to hear anything more about Lawyer Bonu, but concedes that Maanan can pursue dancing if it will make her happy. Hannah presses him similarly on Aaron’s behalf.
George notes that portrait painters can actually make good money. He mentions that Awere is already beginning to earn money from his art, something he’d heard announced on the radio news at six o’clock as he came into the house. James is skeptical, but George, checking his watch and realising it might not be too late to catch the broadcast again, rushes to the radio and tunes in frantically.
A news reader’s voice comes through clearly, delivering various local news items: a bridge repair update, a cocoa conference, and finally, the announcement that “an American collector has bought one of the paintings by a young Ghanaian painter, now on exhibition at the Arts Centre, for two hundred and twenty pounds.” George switches off the radio triumphantly and declares, “There we are: painting also can pay.”
This financial proof finally begins to shift James’s resistance. Hannah observes that James now has no more excuse to oppose Aaron’s painting. James agrees he’s not asking Hannah for anything more. He admits he’s essentially been asked to be “born anew” in a single day: to lose a friend (Bonu), give in to Maanan on dancing, and now also give in to Aaron on painting. He says he’s even willing to concede on Aaron, but that facing “that boy” Awere directly, after everything, will take him some time to get used to. When Hannah tries to press him further, James simply gets up and leaves the room quietly.
George goes to call Aaron and Awere in from outside, while Hannah waits. Aaron, Awere, and George all enter together. Hannah warmly congratulates Awere on his good luck, and tells Aaron that his father has given him the go-ahead to paint. Aaron doesn’t react with pleasure because he is still stung and skeptical after the day’s events. George encourages him to show some enthusiasm, but Aaron pointedly asks what actually changed his father’s mind. He correctly suspects that it was purely the news of money to be made from painting, rather than any real respect for art itself that changed his mind. He accuses his brother of only valorising his medical profession because it earns him a living, just as their father does with money.
Hannah firmly reprimands Aaron. She tells him it’s time someone “talked sense into his head,” and that he should be grateful for the opportunity his father has now given him rather than continuing to sulk, and that he owes his father an apology for his earlier rudeness. George backs her up.
Hannah then sends for Maanan to bring Awere a glass of water as a small gesture of goodwill and celebration. She tells George she’ll need his company a little longer since his father may want him at supper, and exits towards the kitchen to see about the meal.
Maanan re-enters with a glass of water for Awere. Awere takes it and offers a closing toast. He expresses the wish that they might each be given the strength to achieve their heart’s desire in their work. The play ends here.
Related:
- Act 1 Summary of Sons and Daughters by J.C. de Graft
- Characterisation in Joe De Graft’s Sons and Daughters
- Plot Summary and Setting of Sons and Daughters by J.C. de Graft
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