1.

Shelagh Delaney was born November 25, 1939, in Salford, Lancashire,

England. Her father, a bus inspector, and her mother were part of the
English working class, the social group that informs of her writing. She
wrote: The Lion in Love, The White Bus, Charlie Bubbles, Dance with a
stranger, but non were accepted half as well as A Taste of Honey. She died
of breast cancer and heart failure in 2011.
2. A Taste of Honey was written as a protest against working class poverty
and the social conditions of Delaney's time. Delaney felt that she could
write a better play, with more realistic dialogue, than the plays that were
currently being staged. A Taste of Honey became an unexpected hit,
winning several awards both as a play and later as a film.
A Taste of Honey is referred to as a Kitchen sink drama because it portrays
the
lives of working class people, living in a deprived inner city environment,
struggling to
overcome practical and personal problems.
3. We can get an idea of how the society in this play is at the beginning
when Helen and Jo, mother and daughter, move into a comfortless, old
ruin where there is no heating and everything in it is falling apart, the roof
is leaking. Helen mentions that they share a bathroom with the community
and that they have a view of the gasworks and a slaughterhouse, where
we can see that they live in a working class neighbourhood which also
smells. They both have to share a bedroom because there is no place in
the flat and this is the only thing they can afford.
4. It is mentioned in the play that they live in a tenement, which is a
substandard multi-family dwelling in the urban core, usually old and
occupied by the poor, adapted or built for the working class as cities
industrialized. Some people were hostile to tenements because they were
known for fostering disease, immorality in the young, sloth and divorce
5. When it comes to their income, they only have Helen's immoral
earnings which she gets from her lovers and spends it all on alcohol
because she likes to drink a lot of whisky. She says that she drinks because
it consoles her about the life. Helen and Jo can't stand eachother, they are
always fighting and there is no real mother-daughter love between them.
Jo is sick of her mother because she made her life a misery and she wants
to quit school and start working so she can get enough money to get away
from her. When Jo complains about her life and the flat they live in, Helen
tells her: Don't worry, you'll soon be an independent working woman and
free to go where you please. Here we can see that they imply that a
working and earning person is an independent person and it has an
opportunity to do all that person can afford.
When they have settled in their new home, there comes Peter, a man
Helen has probably had intercourse with before, and asks her to marry
him. He is a young, good-looking and well set up guy who offers her a
better life than she has now. It seems as if she will not agree to marry him,
but later on in act one, scene two she reveals that they are getting

married. When Jo asks Helen why she is marrying him she says: He's got
a wallet full of reasons.
6. Unlike her mother, Jo does not care about those things. When her
coloured boyfriend Jimmie asks her to marry him and gives her a ring, she
later asks:
7. Jo gets involved in a relationship with a coloured naval rating guy and
she thinks that her mother isn't prejudiced against colour, but she is. This
is the reaction she has when Jo tells her that the baby she is carrying will
be black:
Helen: You mean to say that... That sailor was a black man?... Oh my God!
Nothing else can happen to me now. Can you see me wheeling a pram
with a... Oh my God. Ill have to have a drink.
Jo: What are you going to do?
Helen: I dont know. Drown it. ...
Helen is so prejudiced against colour that she doesn't want her grandchild
to be black and even wants to drown it.
8. The coloured sailor gets Jo pregnant and altough he asked her to marry
him, he never came back.
I am going to show a clip from the movie where we find out how this
situation with a pregnant woman about to be a single mother is
percieved.
Peter: I'm not having that bloody slut at our place, I'll tell you that for
nothing. ... And don't bring that little fruitcake parcel either. I can't stand
the sight of him. Can't stand 'em at any price.
Here we also have a quote where we can see the hatred against Jo and
Geof - fruitcake=reffered to Jos homosexual friend who has been living
with her and helping her
9. When Helen asks Jo to come and live with them in their big white house,
she says to Jo that she can't live any longer in that dump and that the
whole district is rotten.
Then Geof says: There's one thing about this district, the people in it aren't
rotten. Anyway, I think she is happier here with me than in that dazzling
white house you're supposed to be so...
He is comparing the quality of life based on emotional and personal
factors and not based on money and wealth.
In the end her rich husband throws Helen out and replaces her with a
younger and more attractive woman. She has experienced the high life
and has seen that it isn't as great as she thought and now she is back in
the dump with her daughter and acts like she is the best mother and that
she cares about her. She went to a better place and now everything is

dirty to her which didn't bother her before. She tasted the honey and
nothing will ever taste the same.
Jo's honey was Jimmie the coloured sailor and the taste of love, affection
and passion.
Geof's honey was living with Jo where he had a home and a friend, and
now that Helen is back, he is out on the streets again.

VIDEO: A Taste of Honey - "You know what they're calling you round here...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iejBq2uj48Y