Joseph Character Analysis

Tish’s father, and Sharon’s husband. Like Sharon, Joseph is an unjudgmental person who readily accepts people and their problems. In keeping with this, he insists that he doesn’t think Tish is a “bad girl” for getting pregnant with Fonny’s child, though he does show concern at first about the fact that she’s going to have a child at such a young age and without the father present. However, this is nothing more than a form of parental worry, not a negative judgment of Tish herself. In fact, he soon gets over his worries and is elated that he’s going to be a grandfather, calling Frank and telling him to come over with his wife and daughters. Then, as Mrs. Hunt argues with Tish, Sharon, and Ernestine, Joseph takes Frank out for drinks, wanting to celebrate the good news and also wanting to remove his friend from the tense situation, since Frank can’t stand his wife’s harsh reaction to the news of Tish’s pregnancy and ends up slapping her in the face. Later on, when it becomes clear that they’ll need extra money to pay Fonny’s legal fees, Joseph insists that he and Frank start earning supplemental incomes by stealing from their employers and selling the goods in Harlem and Brooklyn, so he starts filching materials from his job as a merchant on the waterfront. Shortly thereafter, Joseph urges Tish to quit her own job, knowing that she’s working too hard. Saying that she needs to focus on her baby, he tells her that she needs to visit Fonny every day because her pregnancy is the only thing giving him hope. He then reassures her that he and Frank are making enough money to cover the legal fees that Tish is so worried will go unpaid if she quits her job.