A Taste of Honey Essay Questions

What role does codependency play in A Taste of Honey?

As one of the play's major themes, codependency plays a significant role in A Taste of Honey. An excessive psychological or emotional reliance on another person, codependency emerges as a theme when Delaney introduces the audience to Helen and Jo's dysfunctional relationship. From the play's start, their interactions are marked by perpetual bickering, devoid of traditional mother-daughter affection. Despite their apparent aversion, Delaney reveals Jo's hidden longing for Helen's attention and affection. It soon becomes clear that even though Helen is emotionally abusive to Jo, Jo is enmeshed with Helen, leading Jo to say, upon Helen moving in with Peter, that she is neither happy nor sad about the event. When Helen reenters Jo's life during her pregnancy, their dysfunctional dynamic is soon reinstated despite Helen's attempts at showing genuine care for her daughter. This return to the roles of victim, abuser, and rescuer highlights the complexities of their codependency, which dooms both women to making themselves miserable.

What is the significance of the photos of women in Peter's wallet?

The photos of women that Peter carries in his wallet are significant because they symbolize his duplicity and the likelihood he will cheat on Helen. In Act One Scene Two, Peter arrives at the flat to whisk Helen away for a brief holiday. As Helen prepares herself in another room, Peter shares a picture of his new house with Jo, who asks to see the other photographs in Peter's wallet. While Jo initially thinks the photos are of Peter's secret family, to her surprise, Peter's wallet reveals a trove of pictures featuring various women she believes are past or current romantic interests. With feigned indifference, Peter allows Jo to scrutinize these photos while she comments on which are most attractive. Although it may seem that Peter is unashamed of the photos, in the play's final scene, Helen reveals that Peter has abandoned her for a younger woman. With this revelation, Delaney shows that Jo's initial suspicion of Peter's infidelity wasn't unfounded.

What role does abandonment play in A Taste of Honey?

As one of the play's major themes, abandonment plays a crucial role in A Taste of Honey. Delaney explores the theme primarily through Helen's mistreatment of Jo, whose needs she repeatedly disregards. The fact that Jo has grown up constantly being rejected by her mother becomes clear when Helen comments on Jo's jealousy at seeing Helen being affectionate with anyone. Jo later tells Geoffrey that Helen would always pull her hands away when Jo tried to hold them as a kid. Beyond this emotional abandonment, Helen also deserts Jo to move in with Peter. Having left, Helen doesn't visit or contact her daughter until Geoffrey contacts her months later. At the end of the play, though Helen has moved back to the flat, Delaney emphasizes the theme of abandonment by having Helen leave the flat just as Jo is going into labor—a gesture that confirms Helen's strange compulsion to repeatedly disappoint and deprive her daughter.

In what significant ways does Delaney explore alcoholism in A Taste of Honey?

In A Taste of Honey, Delaney explores alcoholism as one of the play's major themes. Defined as the compulsive behavior and mental illness that results from alcohol dependency, alcoholism emerges as a key theme when Helen arrives at the new flat and proceeds to drink whiskey despite complaining of a cold. Jo refuses to join her mother in drinking, saying that she doesn't like alcohol. Rather than respect her daughter's boundary, Helen suggests that Jo should at least try having a drink before she dismisses it entirely. Later in the play, it becomes clear that Peter, Helen's husband, also has a drinking problem, which leads him to treat other people, such as Geoffrey and Jo, rudely and disrespectfully. At the end of the play, Helen's doomed dysfunctional relationship with Peter ends in him leaving her for another woman, prompting Helen to move back in with Jo. At the end of the play, Helen learns Jo's child will be Black, and Helen reacts by leaving to go have a drink to numb her frustration with Jo. With this final image, Delaney emphasizes the degree to which alcoholism stands between not just Jo and Helen but between Helen and reality itself.

What role does dignity play in A Taste of Honey?

Delaney explores dignity as an important theme in A Taste of Honey. Although the characters at the center of the play live lives of desperation, they showcase a defiant pride in themselves. For Helen, just because she has a reputation as a sexually available woman who depends on money from her lovers does not mean she sees herself as desperate. When Peter proposes, she initially fends him off, claiming that she has been considering giving up on men and sex, two things that have defined so much of her lifestyle but have nonetheless invited conflict. Jo inherits her mother's insistence on asserting her dignity, as showcased by Jo's stubborn refusal of Geoffrey's help and her mother's money despite the fact she is about to be an impoverished single mother. Overall, Delaney presents Jo and Helen as complex characters who defy social conventions by refusing to see themselves as victims despite their trying circumstances.