Shelagh Delaney:

A Taste Of Honey

The author:

Shelagh Delaney was born in 1939 in Salford in north-west Britain. She left school at sixteen and had a lot of different jobs. When she was eighteen she wrote the script for "A Taste of Honey" where she wanted to realistically portray the lives of people from the working class. She sent the play to Joan Littlewood who ran a theatre company in London and he was impressed.

In 1958 "A Taste of Honey" opened at the Theatre Royal in London and was very successful. Critics were impressed by the play's originality, directness and humour and called it "a witty tragedy". It seems Delaney was writing from first-hand experience of working-class life. In contrast with the popular plays of the time, this play dealt with contemporary issues which were considered as shocking because, for instance, you get an insight into the attitudes of ordinary people, including racist, sexiest and homophobic views.

In 1960 she wrote a second play, "The Lion in Love" which had a more complex plot. After her short story collection "Sweetly Sings the Donkey" (1963) she has been scriptwriter for film and television (e.g. "Charly Bubbles", "Dance with a Stranger")

Contents:

The play begins with Jo and her mother Helen entering her new flat. Jo complains about the condition of the flat and they criticise the other's behaviour. Jo is in her final term in school and had to change her home very often.  Soon, Peter Smith, an admirer of Helen, arrives and asks her if she wants to marry him, which Jo doesn't like. Jo is ignored and they made her feel unwelcome.

Jo's boyfriend is a black naval officer referred to as "Boy" and also offers her a marriage although it is obvious that he does not want to spend all his life with Jo.

Peter and Jo quarrel a lot and finally he and Helen depart and leave the young girl distressed and alone in the flat. Although she knows that their relationship has no future, she asks the sailor to stay over Christmas. In these days she leaves school and begins to work.

A few days later Helen comes home again and is very angry about her daughter's wish to marry but the sailor left already.

Then, one summer evening during the following year, Jo comes home with Geoffrey Ingram, a homosexual friend. She is pregnant by the sailor and Geof supports her as best as he can. He tells her that preparations for her child are necessary, but she doesn't want to be mother and so she does nothing. He also asks her to marry him but she refuses.

Helen visits Jo because she found out that she is pregnant. Immediately she has an argument with Geof and she insults both of them. Also Peter appears, drunk and abusive and tells that he regrets his marriage and then the couple leaves again.

Some months later Jo and Geof are still together. He wants her to practise nursing a baby and gives a doll to her. But it is the wrong color and so she smashes it.

Unannounced Helen enters the flat and forces Geof to leave. She moves again in the flat since Peter left her because of a younger woman.

When Jo tells her mother that her baby will be black she is shocked and leaves for a drink. The scene ends with Jo, alone in the flat and unaware that Geof has left, singing a nursery rhyme.

Formal interpretation:

The play has an uncomplicated structure. It is divided into two acts which each contains two scenes. A period of around nine months in the 1950s is told. The action begins in winter just before Christmas and spans a few weeks and then the happenings of the following summer are told.

Throughout the play music is important. In the original production each character had their own individual signature tune which was played when they entered or left the stage.

Shelagh Delaney's aim was to write in the way people talk and so she "chooses" the language of ordinary working-class people and uses fast-moving conversations. Short sentences and quick, witty comments are characteristics of these dialogues. The people also jump from one subject to another in the middle of a speech which shows how the author tried to copy the way of a real conversation. Often they are not talking directly to the other person but to a third party, possibly the audience.

There are also scenes of swearing although foul language is only used when the characters are either drunk or in conflict.

Most of the comical and funny elements come through the dialogue in quarrels and confrontations.

The action takes place within a flat and on the street outside. The flat is dilapidated, run-down, draughty, dirty and situated in the industrial part of Manchester close to gasworks, a slaughterhouse, a canal and a cemetery. This gives the image of the social situation in this area.

Characterisation:

Jo                    In the beginning she is a schoolgirl and in the end she is an expectant mother. She tells her boyfriend she is eighteen but one does not know if it is right. On the one hand she is insecure, vulnerable and unable to cope with her situation but on the other hand she can be very independent, strong-minded and knows what she wants. She is afraid of darkness, has frequently been left on her own and her only friend is Geof. She is very critical of her mother's behaviour and tells her often that she is a failure as a mother. She calls her "Helen" which suggests that she does not respect her or that she sees herself as Helen's equal. When she was young, Helen used to refuse to hold Jo's hand which is an example for how lonely she felt all her life.

For Jo it is a completely new situation that Geof offers her friendship and does not demand anything in return. He is the only person she can really talk to.

In the end, despite her bad situation and her pregnancy, she seems to be mature enough to raise a child.

Helen                          is a good-looking woman who enjoys life without thinking about her responsibilities or the consequences of her actions, so she is thoughtless and selfish. She depends heavily on drink and has neglected Jo's emotional and physical needs. She ignored her or left her on her own for long periods of time. But Helen realises and knows that she often neglected her daughter for her own happiness. Since she is a changeable character, she can be honestly self-critical and sometimes she seems to worry about Jo. She also wants her daughter not to make the same mistakes as she.

She has a lot of prejudices against homosexual people and so she cannot rest until she has Geof insulted that much that he leaves the flat forever.

She tries to make the most of life and accepts its realities.

Geof                           is a young homosexual art student and offers Jo practical support and friendship. He is caring, intelligent and sensitive to Jo's feelings, fears and her mood swings. Although she really likes him, she often insults him, like Peter and Helen, by saying something about his homosexuality. He cleans the flat, does the shopping and they laugh, joke and sing nursery rhymes together. Geof's feelings for her are very strong, but he is not sexually attracted to her. He declares that he would rather be dead than separated from her and that he will stay until she finds the right person to love. It is Geof who contacts Helen because he feels that Jo needs her and he leaves because he knows that Jo could not bear the tension between him and Helen. Before he leaves he tells Helen not to frighten Jo, because she is very afraid of delivery and motherhood.

Peter                           is described as a brash salesman with an eye-patch and he smokes cigars. He is successful and has a lot of money. But he is also aggressive, unfaithful and is a drunkard. He has no interest in Jo and Helen marries him because of his wealth. In the end, it is no surprise that his marriage to Helen is over because he has gone off with another woman.

The Boy          Jo's boyfriend is a black 22 year old sailor from Wales. He only appears twice in the play and he isn't identified by name until the end of the play, when Jo talks about him as "Jimmie". The gentle and intelligent man is obviously interested in Jo and he is impressed that Jo does not feel ashamed when she is with him on the street. Despite all this, he disappears from Jo's life. But during their brief relationship Jo was happy, he gave her a brief "taste of honey" in her life, which she really needed.

Interpretation:

The title of the play is taken from the Bible and the "Taste of Honey" means a period of happiness. Both, Helen and Jo, have short relationships where they were content with their lives. Although this did not last long, the Jo's pregnancy in the end is a symbol of hope.

The central and most obvious theme in this play is the relationship between Jo and Helen. Jo seems to be torn between wanting her mother's love and affection and a desire to be independent of her. At the beginning they are constantly fighting and insulting each other. Later, their relationship seems to be improving. They argue less, are more sensitive to each other and Jo is very happy that Helen has returned. Though, when she tells her mother, that the baby will be black, she seems to behave like in the beginning and leaves the flat to go for a drink.

Other important topics are marriage and love. Helen married the first time because she had nothing better to do. She is a realist and she tells Jo that she was attracted by Peter's money, not love. In her opinion, to marry means to ruin one's life.

The only one who has truly unselfish love is Geof. He would do everything for Jo and he does not want anything in return.

There is also a great amount of references to death and darkness in the play. Their flat is close to a cemetery and a slaughterhouse. Once, Helen compares her bed with a coffin and there are many allusions to black, shades of darkness, the night and the absence of light. Darkness is a symbol for the unknown, which can be positive or negative and Jo is afraid of it.

Each male character is somehow identified by black. Jo's boyfriend is black, Peter wears a black eye-patch and Geof wears a black shirt.

Nearly everyone in the play is a kind of an outsider.

The most obvious one is Geof because of his homosexuality. But also Jo's boyfriend is an outcast within the play, because of his color. Helen is an exception to the average woman and mother because she has had a lot of men and she does not really care about her daughter.

Jo has had nobody to talk to until she met Geof. She was alone with her feelings and fears all her life and in a way, she does not know how to cope with the situation of being loved by someone.

Personal statement:

I liked the play very much because it describes an ordinary life in an extraordinary way. Although reading it made me sometimes sad, there are a lot of comical elements in it. I enjoyed very much that it is written in a way one can really talk. The conversations, conflicts and arguments seem authentic and this makes the play believable.

Bibliography:

York Notes "A Taste of Honey", 1999