Summary
Months later, Geoffrey and Jo are in the flat. Geoffrey dances in with a mop and begins cleaning. Jo reads aloud from a pregnancy book Geoffrey bought her. They are in the ninth month of the pregnancy. They discuss the homemade maternity dress Jo made. Geoffrey says it looks like a shroud. They discuss the cake Geoffrey is making. Geoffrey shifts the sofa and finds the old flower bulbs and some dirt underneath. Geoffrey cleans it up. Jo asks to hold Geoffrey’s hands, which she says are nice and hard. She says she used to try to hold her mother’s hands, but she would pull them away. Jo says, “She had so much love for everyone else, but none for me.” Geoffrey says that Jo is already like her own mother in some ways.
Jo pushes his hand away; he returns to tidying. Jo remarks on the night she said he could stay with her if he told her what he did. She says she used to think he was “an interesting, immoral character” before she knew him. He chases her with the mop as she speaks. When Geoffrey tells her not to shout, Jo talks about how she’s Irish, so can’t help it. She tells him that she believes her father was Irish, and the village idiot. Geoffrey suspects Helen made up the story, asking Jo if she could really picture her mother “going out with a real loony.” Jo supposes she can’t imagine it. Jo says she wishes her mother were there, even if they only quarrel. Jo learns that Geoffrey’s exams are finishing on Thursday, about the same time she is due to give birth.
Geoffrey gives Jo a baby doll to practice holding. She says the color is wrong. Jo suddenly throws the doll on the ground and says, “I’ll bash its brains out. I’ll kill it. I don’t want this baby, Geof. I don’t want to be a mother. I don’t want to be a woman.” Geoffrey asks if she wants him to go out and find Jimmie and bring him back. Jo says she doesn’t want any man.
Geoffrey asks if she still loves Jimmie. Jo says she doesn’t know. He was like a dream. Geoffrey asks if she remembers when he (Geoffrey) asked her to marry him. Jo has forgotten it. Geoffrey says she needs someone to love her while she’s looking for someone to love. Jo says she always wants him with her because he’ll never ask anything from her. They go to the kitchen to pull the cake from the oven. Jo jokes that she’ll name her baby Number One, because it’ll always be number one to itself.
Helen arrives laden with luggage, as she appeared at the beginning of the play. Helen says she is back and has brought flowers. She says the place is looking more cheerful and there’s a homely smell. Helen asks if she’s ready to go to the hospital. Geoffrey says Jo wants to have the baby at home. Helen says she can’t have a baby in this dump. Geoffrey says it’ll be fine: they have a district nurse coming in.
Jo asks why Helen has all her cases with her. Helen says she’s come to look after Jo. Geoffrey asks if Peter is coming too. Helen says there wouldn’t be enough room. Geoffrey says he doesn’t mind moving out. Jo says he doesn’t have to let Helen push him around. Helen asks Geoffrey to make himself scarce so she can talk to her daughter. He says he has to go out anyway.
When Geoffrey leaves, Helen calls him an arty little freak. Jo says he’s the only friend she has. Jo comments that Peter has thrown Helen out. Helen says it was good while it lasted and it’s alright because she’s saved a bit of money for herself. Helen admits he is off with another woman. Helen says she’s ordered a cot for the baby. Jo says Geoffrey got a wicker one that they like, even if it’s old-fashioned.
Helen sends Jo to have a rest, then calls the place a pigsty she’ll have to clean up. Geoffrey enters with a bag of food. He tells Helen the place is already clean. Helen looks through the bag of food and takes issue with the spaghetti. Geoffrey says Jo likes food like that. Geoffrey asks politely for Helen to not frighten Jo by talking about how the birth might be difficult. He says Jo wants him by her side for the birth. Helen says it’s no place for a man. Geoffrey agrees to leave, but asks again that Helen not frighten Jo. Geoffrey exits.
Jo wakes and asks if Geoffrey has come back yet. Helen says he hasn’t. Jo says she wonders where he is. Helen reassures her not to worry, stroking her daughter’s hair. Helen gets up to light the stove, unsure how to do it. Jo tells Helen that her baby may be Black. Helen says she’ll have to have a drink. She jokes about having to drown the baby. She says the nurse will have a shock. Jo says the nurse is Black too. Helen says good, perhaps she’ll adopt the baby. Jo says, “If you don’t like it you can get out. I didn’t ask you to come here.”
Helen asks where her hat is. Jo says it’s on her head. To the audience, Helen asks what she should do. Jo asks if she’s going out for a drink. Helen says yes. Jo asks if she’s coming back. Helen says yes. Jo says, “Well, what are you going to do?” Helen says, “Put it on stage and call it Blackbird.” She rushes out with Jo watching after her. Jo looks around the room, smiling to herself. She thinks of Geoffrey and repeats a nursery rhyme Geoffrey earlier recited: “As I was going up Pippin Hill, / Pippin Hill was dirty. / And there I met a pretty miss, / And she dropped me a curtsy. / Little miss, pretty miss, / Blessings light upon you. / If I had half a crown a day, / I’d gladly spend it on you.” The curtain falls, signaling the end of the play.
Analysis
In the final scene of A Taste of Honey, Delaney advances the story another few months so that Jo is about to give birth. The theme of abandonment arises when Jo holds Geoffrey’s hands and comments on the way Helen used to pull her hands away from Jo when she was a child. With this impulse to reject Jo’s affection, Helen traumatized her daughter and contributed to Jo’s dysfunctional desire for affection from a person who could never give it to her. Jo remarks on the irony of Helen’s sexual availability, which led her to give herself freely to many men but refuse Jo any love.
Delaney continues building on the theme of abandonment with Jo’s sudden emotional turn. When she sees the skin color of the baby doll Geoffrey gives, Jo lashes out in anger, claiming she doesn’t want her own baby. She also adds that she doesn’t want to be a mother or a woman—a comment that speaks to her feeling that she is in a uniquely unfair situation that only women find themselves in. Believing Jo is feeling sensitive about having been abandoned, Geoffrey offers to find Jimmie. But Jo insists she doesn’t want any man, which isn’t surprising given the unreliability of the male figures in her life.
The relative domestic calm that Geoffrey and Jo have achieved is disrupted by Helen’s sudden return to the flat. In an instance of situational irony, Helen’s relationship with Peter has ended just as Jo predicted, and Helen now needs to take refuge with the daughter she has repeatedly abandoned. In an image that parallels the play’s opening, Helen has her belongings with her in pieces of baggage. This repetition suggests that Helen is doomed to repeat the same mistakes with men over and over, winding up back where she started.
The theme of resentment reemerges with Helen’s efforts to wrestle control over her daughter and the flat back from Geoffrey. Although Geoffrey has stepped in to fill both Helen’s and Jimmie’s absences and provide a more stable environment for the baby, Helen disregards Geoffrey’s efforts, resenting him for displacing her from her dysfunctional relationship with her daughter. Despite Helen’s abusiveness, Geoffrey politely agrees to leave; his only request is that Helen not alarm Jo, who certainly doesn’t need any more stress when she is on the brink of giving birth.
Delaney returns to the theme of codependency with Helen’s quick assertion of her primacy in Jo’s life. In a rare moment of intimacy, Delaney shows Helen reassuring her daughter and stroking her hair, thus giving Jo the affection she is always craving from Helen. In this moment of vulnerability, Jo confesses that Jimmie was Black, meaning her baby will be too. Helen immediately returns to her abusive behavior, scolding Jo for having gotten involved with a Black man. In this way, Delaney shows how the brief care Helen gave her daughter did not mark a change in her attitude, but was merely a component of their dysfunctional relationship.
The themes of abandonment and alcoholism reemerge with Helen’s decision to leave her daughter alone in the flat as her labor begins. Just as Helen has done throughout Jo’s life, Helen puts her own feelings ahead of her daughter’s and goes to have a drink to calm herself after the unexpected news of her grandchild’s race.
Delaney leaves the audience with the image of Jo smiling to herself as she watches her mother leave yet again. The smile is ambiguous, and could suggest that Jo wanted to send her mother away; it could also suggest that Jo finds it perversely satisfying to return to the dysfunctional relationship she has been deprived of while Helen was living with Peter. Delaney’s stage direction notes that she is also thinking of Geoffrey, which seems also to give her some comfort. However, in an instance of dramatic irony, Jo is oblivious to the fact Helen has pushed Geoffrey out of the flat, leaving Jo completely alone.
