Taste of Honey: From dependence to independence :: English Literature

Taste of Honey From dependence to independenceA Taste of Honey was written by Shelagh Delaney when she was 18, andpublished in 1958. Four years later, in 1962, it was turned into afilm. It shows spirit as it really was for many people in and around theslums of Salford, near Manchester, living with the poor housing andlack of opportunity. The characters be genuine you can reallybelieve in them. Some of the characters were totally different fromthe usual straight-laced characters that were so common in thekitchen-sink dramas that were around at the time. For instance, ahomosexual, a young pregnant unmarried girl, a semi-whore mother and ablack sailor all living in the same areas, and some fifty-fifty living in thesame houses as each other. This was completely different from thesafe defrauds of the time. in that respect is hope in the play the characters,especially Jo, are able to quash their fears and problems and carryon with their lives.The characters in a taste of honey speak like typical working classpeople in the north of England. There are not many examples ofregional dialect, but there are a few, such as when Helen says, Eee,theres a terrible draught, showing that Helen is a resident ofLancashire. The characters drop letters, making them sound morecommon. There are many examples of this, including Jo saying, Youpacked em, and Helen saying, Turn em all. This shows that Helenand Jo are ordinary, common, working class or lower, people.The ancient Greeks believed that a play had to be realistic, and thatto be realistic the action of the play should have one setting. Thetime the play took to act should be equal to the time covered in theplot and that the play should have only one chief(prenominal) story. The Greekscalled these ideas the three unties of time, action and place. Thisis different to a taste of honey in that the play, although onlyhaving one main plot, has a sub-plot. The main story is the story ofJo, and the sub-plot being Helens story.Ther e are many objects in the play which could contain a hiddenmeaning, from something a childly as darkness or a light bulb, todeeper things such as an eye patch or children singing. The list isendless. The very first instance of symbolization is the plays title, ataste of honey. A taste is a very small amount for a short period oftime. Honey is sweet, and therefore honey represents good. From Jospoint of view, her life is bad.