# Tempy — Not Without Laughter character guide

> Tempy in Not Without Laughter by Langston Hughes.

**Role:** supporting

**Also known as:** Aunt Tempy

**First appearance:** 0022-xxiii-tempy-s-house

## Snapshot

Sandy's proper aunt, married to a mail clerk with property, who has climbed so far she barely visits her own family.

## Who they are

Tempy collects rents, buys houses, and measures her distance from the washtubs and back doors of her mother's world. Harriett sneers that when niggers get up in the world they act just like white folks, and Tempy is the proof she offers. Her respectability is both an achievement and a wound, and her occasional appearances remind Sandy that the family's story is also about the price of getting out.

## In the story

### [Storm](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/not_without_laughter_se/chapters/i-storm)

Tempy is mentioned as being safe after the storm, according to Aunt Hager's conversation.

### [Note to Harriett](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/not_without_laughter_se/chapters/xxi-note-to-harriett)

Takes charge of the household after Hager falls ill; sends Sandy to deliver a note to Harriett and to send a telegram to Annjee.

### [Beyond the Jordan](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/not_without_laughter_se/chapters/xxii-beyond-the-jordan)

Organizes the funeral and takes charge of Sandy; writes to Annjee about Hager's death.

### [Tempy's House](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/not_without_laughter_se/chapters/xxiii-tempy-s-house)

Tempy is Sandy's aunt and new guardian. She is obsessed with respectability, social status, and distancing herself from her family's past. She admires white culture, rejects blues and spirituals, and insists on proper speech and behavior. She manages her own and her husband's rental properties and takes pride in being the only colored woman with a charge account at Wertheimer's.

### [A Shelf of Books](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/not_without_laughter_se/chapters/xxiv-a-shelf-of-books)

Tempy provides Sandy with books, encourages his education, and buys him a long-trouser suit when he enters high school. She disapproves of Booker T. Washington and admires Du Bois.

### [Pool Hall](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/not_without_laughter_se/chapters/xxv-pool-hall)

Mentioned as being away at a convention of the Midwest Colored Women's Clubs, allowing Sandy freedom to visit the pool hall.

### [XXVI: The Doors of Life](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/not_without_laughter_se/chapters/xxvi-the-doors-of-life)

Tempy is busy with Red Cross and Liberty Bond clubs, believing the war will bring democracy and better race relations. She scolds Sandy for his late hours and lack of reading, and gives him a book called 'The Doors of Life'.

### [XXVII: Beware of Women](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/not_without_laughter_se/chapters/xxvii-beware-of-women)

Sandy's aunt who advises him to stop seeing Pansetta; Sandy later resents her interference.

### [Chicago](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/not_without_laughter_se/chapters/xxviii-chicago)

Sandy's aunt who packed his lunch and expressed concern about Chicago's influence on him.

### [Elevator](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/not_without_laughter_se/chapters/xxix-elevator)

Referenced as having a house Sandy admires, but he rejects her husband's dullness and shame about being colored.

### [Princess of the Blues](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/not_without_laughter_se/chapters/xxx-princess-of-the-blues)

Mentioned by Harriett as having behaved coldly after Aunt Hager's funeral.

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/not_without_laughter_se/characters/tempy
- Book: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/not_without_laughter_se
- All characters: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/not_without_laughter_se/characters