Uncovering the Truth for a Better Education: A Marxist Approach to J. C. De Graft’s Sons and Daughters

Abstract

What factors should come first in the choice of an educational programme or a future career for a ward? Is it the interest, potential, and passion of the ward or the ego of the guardian? Is it monetary consideration and social status that should be the criteria based upon which such a decision is made or the criterion of better prospects of a job market? These and other questions are raised and dramatised in Sons and daughters by De Graft. This paper examines the extent to which capitalist ideology plays a role in determining career choice and in creating the familial tensions and conflict that are presented in the play. By applying Marxist theory and praxis to the content and form of the play, it is found that Sons and daughters is not simply about a generational conflict between parents and their children; it equally presents capitalist ideologies that undergird some of the attitudes and decisions that we make on a daily basis. More significantly, evidence from the play indicates that it is the prospects of a job market, the potential and interest of the ward and not the ego of the guardian or the wishful careers of the latter which must come first in the choice of a programme or a future career for a ward.