Summary
First performed at the Theatre Royal, Stratford, London, on 27 May 1958, Shelagh Delaney’s two-act play A Taste of Honey features a cast of five characters. Set in Manchester, an industrial city in northwestern England, the play opens with Helen, described as a “semi-whore,” and her teenage daughter, Jo, arriving at a rundown flat (apartment) with their belongings. Jo complains about the condition of the place; Helen tells Jo it’s all she can afford and that Jo can’t complain until she starts earning money herself.
Helen asks where the glasses are so she can begin drinking. Jo says Helen makes her sick, because all she does is drink. Jo points out that they’ll be sharing a bed again. She complains about the freezing cold; Helen tells her to have some whiskey to warm herself. Jo says Helen knows she doesn’t like alcohol, then admits she’s never tried it. After arguing about how to light the gas stove, Jo asks if any young people live in the lodging house. Helen says she saw a long-legged handsome man who would be just her type—and Jo’s. Jo says she’s never had a boyfriend, but thought she was in love with one of Helen’s “fancy men,” but then he ran away with the landlady’s daughter.
Out the window the women can see a slaughterhouse; Jo says the place will probably stink in summer. Helen says the whole city smells. Helen continues to complain about her cold, which she thinks might be a flu, while Jo plans where to put the flower bulbs she stole from a park. She wants to grow flowers in a window box, something she’s never been successful at. Jo and Helen discuss how Jo plans to stop going to secondary school after Christmas. She wants to earn money and move away from Helen. Helen points out that she doesn’t like working. Jo agrees, saying she takes after Helen.
Jo asks Helen what she thinks about Jo getting a job in a pub (bar). Helen says it’s up to her to ruin her life her way. Jo says she’s not getting married like Helen did; she is “too young and beautiful for that.” While moving things around, Helen finds Jo’s drawings and comments on how talented Jo is. Helen simultaneously mocks her daughter. Helen says, “Self-portraits? Oh! Well, I suppose you’ve got to draw pictures of yourself, nobody else would.”
Helen says it would be a waste of herself not to consider going to art school. Jo complains that Helen never cared about what she does before. Jo asks why they had to come there anyway. Helen says she was fed up with the other place. Jo says she must be running from someone then. Helen gets angry. Jo asks where the communal bath is—she wants to bathe. Helen says she’s always bathing. Jo says that actually, she puts it off as long as she can, then has a good scrub.
Peter, a car salesman with an eye patch, enters with a cigar in his mouth. Helen asks how he found her address. He simply says, “I found it. Did you think you could escape me, dear?” Helen tells Jo that Peter’s name is Smith. Peter hasn’t met Jo. Helen asks what he wants. He fumblingly makes a sexual advance at Helen. Peter and Helen order Jo to see to the boiling kettle. Peter tells Helen to make Jo go away. Helen says she can’t, and nobody asked him to come there anyway.
Peter asks what made her choose such an area: it has a cemetery and slaughterhouse. Helen asks why he followed her there. He tells her she can’t afford to lose a man like him. She says she’s been thinking of giving up sex and men. He tells her she does it so well. Peter tells her to come to the church with him; he’ll marry her. He then says they should go for a drink. Helen says she’s old enough to be his mother. He says he likes “this mother and son relationship.” He asks her to marry him, saying he is young, good-looking, and well set up.
Jo brings coffee in and has a seat. Helen tells Peter that Jo is jealous: she can’t stand to see her mother being affectionate with anyone else. Peter and Helen complain about how weak the coffee is. Helen tries to get Peter to leave. He pulls her close to him by the door and tries to tell a joke, but Jo interrupts and undermines him. Peter finally leaves when Helen half-jokingly kicks him out.
Jo says she isn’t going to have a bath because it’s too dark out now. Helen says most places—and herself—look best in the dark. She says she can’t understand why Jo doesn’t like it. Helen says she’s thinking of getting married again. Jo says she’ll have Helen locked up in an institution right away.
Analysis
The first scene of A Taste of Honey sees Shelagh Delaney introduce the play’s major themes: codependency, poverty, alcoholism, abandonment, dignity, shame, and resentment.
Delaney first establishes Helen and Jo’s poverty through the play’s gritty setting: a low-cost, poorly maintained one-bedroom flat in a lodging house situated in an industrial area of Manchester. Lacking a private bathroom, the flat shares a common bathroom with other residents; the place is also so small that Helen and Jo will have to share a bed despite the inappropriateness of such an arrangement given that Jo is seventeen. Through the dialogue, the audience learns that neither Jo nor Helen work. While Helen isn’t exactly a sex worker, Jo insinuates that what little money she has comes from the “fancy men” she sees—a precarious arrangement because such relationships have a tendency to end.
The theme of resentment arises as Helen and Jo bicker in a comedically conflictual back and forth. As the women cut each other down with sarcastic comments, the audience immediately understands that their relationship as mother and daughter is dysfunctional. Rather than address each other with respect or affection, they struggle to outwit the other as if they are competitive siblings. It comes as no surprise when Jo announces her intention to leave school and start earning her own money so she can live alone.
But despite the resentment Jo shows toward her mother, Jo becomes jealous when Helen’s lover, Peter, arrives to seek Helen’s affection. Helen explains that Jo can’t stand to see Helen being affectionate with anyone—a hint at Jo’s complicated emotional enmeshment with her mother. Having been repeatedly disregarded and rejected by Helen, Jo has grown up to seek her mother’s attention and affection in spite of the fact that Helen always lets her down. In this way, Delaney establishes the codependent relationship that has made Helen and Jo both intimately entwined and resentfully distant.
Alcoholism also emerges as a complementary theme as Helen drinks whiskey, ostensibly to warm her up and soothe her cold. In reality, Helen is dependent on alcohol, and she will use any excuse to have a drink. Having seen the mental, physical, and behavioral consequences of alcohol addiction firsthand, Jo refuses to take up drinking. But rather than respect her daughter’s boundary, Helen casually pressures Jo to try the whiskey before she decides she doesn’t like it. With this gesture, Delaney shows how Helen’s drinking is not only a means of numbing her feelings but also something she uses to excuse irresponsible treatment of her daughter.
At the end of the first scene, Peter—seemingly unable to control his attraction to Helen as she plays hard to get—proposes marriage. Helen continues to act aloof and maintain her dignity, as though the fact of his affluence isn’t appealing to her. However, the scene concludes with Helen admitting to Jo that she is thinking about accepting the proposal. Jo jokes that she might have to get her mother put away in an insane asylum; this is Jo’s sarcastic way of suggesting that she doesn’t believe a serious relationship with a flashy, disreputable figure like Peter will last.
