A Taste of Honey by Shelagh Delaney Essay -- English Literature

In piece of writing A Taste of Honey, what impact did Shelagh Delaney hope tohave upon her audience? What techniques did she use to achieve theseaims?Shelagh Delaney wrote A Taste of Honey in 1958 when she was only 18.A Taste of Honey is a story about the relationship between a girland her mother. The mother, Helen, who is a semi-whore, leaves herdaughter, Jo, to get married to Peter. Jo has a relationship with asailor and gets pregnant. The sailor then leaves for duty. Jo meetsGeoff, they become friends and Geoff offers to help Jo bring up thebaby. Helen returns after splitting up with Peter and wants Jo back.The audience that Shelagh Delaney was writing for consisted mainly ofmiddle class and upper class people. Her audience were used to seeingproductions about characters leading similar lives to their own. Thestereotypical play was where the men worked and the women stayed athome, cleaning and cooking. A Taste of Honey did not have thesequalities at all. Shelagh Delaneys aims wer e to shock her audienceinto seeing what the real world could be like. The audience of the snip were relatively un-aware of the truth about working classes andtheir lives.This type of play was new to the theatrical stage, and could take timebefore the working class plays would be authentic and appreciated.The upper classes were mostly unaware that the lower classes wereleading such different lives to themselves. Shelagh Delaneys playbrought to light what the lower classes lives were like and thedifferences between the two classes. The plays of the time had genuinelystructured, clear story lines, with stereotypical happy families.Shelagh Delaney challenged these ideas about the ideal play along withman... ... A Taste of Honey was inspiration for many writers.The writers of Soaps like investiture Street and Eastenders will havebeen greatly influenced by the new ideas that Shelagh Delaney hadbrought into subject field. Shelagh Delaney will have influenced thesewriters because she ha d written a play about a topic that hadnt beenshown on television before and the producers were looking for newideas.Shelagh Delaneys work only has a small relevance to todays audience.Most of the ideas and concepts in it are aimed to suit the audience ofthe 1950s/60s. The theatre audiences of today know that most modernworking classes do not live as the characters do in A Taste ofHoney.In A Taste of Honey Shelagh Delaney shocked her audience bypresenting them with situations that they were not used to. Thiseffect created a well structured and enjoyable play.