A Taste of Honey: Themes

A Taste of Honey: Themes

Themes

Exam responses that are led by ideas are more likely to reach the highest levels of the mark scheme. Exploring the ideas of the text, specifically in relation to the question being asked, will help to increase your fluency and assurance in writing about the play.

Below are some ideas which could be explored in A Taste of Honey. This list is not exhaustive and you are encouraged to identify other ideas within the play. Below you will find sections on:

• Motherhood and family

• Discrimination

• Independence and marriage

A Taste of Honey: Themes: Motherhood and family

Motherhood and family

In A Taste of Honey, Shelagh Delaney depicts the struggles of single mothers in 1950s Britain and, in doing so, critiques traditional values. The play illustrates how her characters’ negative attitudes to motherhood and family are largely a result of social and financial pressures.  

Knowledge and understanding 

• The play’s exposition introduces a working-class single mother, Helen:

  • She and her unhappy daughter have moved to a rundown flat in an industrial town in northern England 

• Helen resorts to drinking as it “consoles” her, and she is ill at the start of the play: 

  • “I feel rotten. I've no business being out of bed”

• She is portrayed as a mother struggling under the pressures of life

• At times, she tries to support Jo: 

  • “I'll pay, You're not stupid. You'll soon learn”

• Mother and daughter have different perspectives on their relationship

• Jo is resentful of her mother’s life choices, which leads to bitter arguments and insults:

  • She asks Helen, “What do you need consoling about?”

• When Jo expresses discontent, Helen tries to make light of things or turns on Jo: 

  • “That's my fault, I suppose”

• Helen seeks support, but Jo says she doesn’t “owe” her mother “a thing”

• Delaney’s depiction of a pregnant Jo presents a cycle of single motherhood, yet signals changes in attitudes to conventional family dynamics

• Jo’s fear about having a baby is illustrated in her panic: 

  • She says “I’ll kill it when it comes, Geoff”

• At the same time, she and Geof illustrate an alternative to traditional families

What is Delaney’s intention?  

• Delaney reflects changing societal attitudes in her depiction of a daughter determined to lead a different life to her mother 

• Delaney depicts the emotional and physical impact of financial insecurity on working-class single mothers

• The play suggests single motherhood is perpetuated by patriarchal values and traditional views on family

A Taste of Honey: Themes: Discrimination

Discrimination

Delaney highlights unconscious and casual discrimination in 1950s Britain, including sexism, racism, and homophobia. The play depicts how derogatory comments lead to bitterness, mistrust, and defensiveness.  

Knowledge and understanding

• Jo’s boyfriend is introduced as a “a coloured naval rating” (a Black sailor)

• Jimmie is presented as accustomed to racist attitudes: 

  • When he is kissing Jo in the street he asks: “Afraid someone’ll see us?”

• Helen’s response to Jo’s pregnancy suggests racist attitudes: 

  • “Can you see me wheeling a pram with a… Oh my God”

• That Jimmie is named “Boy” throughout the play contributes to his dehumanisation

• Even Jo, who forms a romantic relationship with Jimmie, is unconsciously racist:

  • She says “There's still a bit of jungle in you somewhere”

• Delaney’s play highlights sexism, particularly ageist attitudes to women:

  • Helen’s age and appearance is linked and insulted

  • Jo says she is a “well-preserved sixty” and Peter says she looks like a “bloody unrestored oil painting”

• The play depicts homophobic attitudes towards Geof, a homosexual art student:

  • Peter calls him female names: 

    • “Where are the drinks, Lana?” and “Mary, come here”

  • Helen uses derogatory language, calling him a “pansified little freak”

  • She asks Jo, “does he knit an’ all?”

  • Geof’s desire to care for Jo while she is pregnant is greeted with Helen’s disgust

What is Delaney’s intention?

• Delaney highlights unconscious and deliberate racism and homophobia

• The play illustrates a lack of self-esteem as a result of mistreatment

• Delaney also suggests that discrimination leads to bitterness and isolation 

A Taste of Honey: Themes: Independence and marriage

Independence and marriage

Delaney criticises a society where women are dependent on men to provide financial security. She shows how this results in damaging relationships and limited autonomy for women. 

Knowledge and understanding 

• Helen’s priority is to gain financial independence by marrying Peter Smith:

  • She does not like Peter and has tried to escape him: 

    • “The only consolation I can find in your immediate presence is your ultimate absence”

• Peter’s emotional manipulation of Helen extends to insults and threats 

  • He tells Helen she cannot escape him, and that women are to “indulge” his “little vices” because he is “young, good-looking and well set up”

  • Helen marries him for a “wallet full of reasons”

• Helen’s powerlessness about marriage is implied in the line “We’re all at the steering wheel of our own destiny. Careering along like drunken drivers”

• Helen’s choices leave Jo cynical of the idea of marriage, yet still keen for intimacy and comfort:

  • Jo tells the “Boy”, Jimmie, “I won't marry you” but she begins a sexual relationship which leaves her pregnant and alone when he goes to the navy

• She refuses to marry Geof despite his kindness: 

  • She says theirs is not “marrying love”

• Jo’s attitude to marriage is fixed:

  • She says to Geof, “I don’t want any man”

• The play critiques relationships that are based on sex:

  • Helen is angry about pornography in films, and implies men are motivated by sex

  • She says about Jimmie: “I hope you exercised proper control over his nautical ardour. I've met a few sailors”

What is Delaney’s intention?

• Through Jo, Delaney raises the idea of a “room of my own”, a possible reference to feminism:

  • Jo says she wants a “room of my own”

  • “A Room of One's Own” is a 1929 feminist essay by English writer Virginia Woolf, who argues that a woman needs financial independence and a private space to be creative and to achieve her full potential

• The play illustrates the destructive emotional and physical effects of limited female autonomy 

• The controversial 1950s play critiques patriarchal structures that mean both marriage or a refusal to marry leaves women vulnerable