A Taste of Honey: Writer's Methods and Techniques (AQA GCSE English Literature): Revision Note

Shelagh Delaney employs various dramatic devices and literary techniques to convey meaning and deliver messages. The exam question on A Taste of Honey requires you to analyse methods, which means you should consider how Delaney’s choices affect how an audience reacts. Here we will explore the way Delaney uses:

• Form and structure

• Stagecraft

• Language 

• Imagery and symbolism 

Form and structure

Shelagh Delaney’s play is a kitchen sink drama, which means the play is a realistic depiction of ordinary individuals’ lives, and that it portrays the struggles of working-class life.

It is useful to consider the genre (opens in a new tab) of the play in your analysis as this is a key writer’s method. With this in mind, it is worth analysing the way the play uses dramatic conventions.

• The play is divided into two acts that consist of two scenes:

  • Act 1 introduces single mother Helen and her teen daughter Jo moving into a rundown flat

  • Act 2 jumps to several months later when Jo is pregnant: the setting is now Jo’s flat (small, sparsely furnished)

• Delaney uses a cyclical structure to reflect a cycle of poverty for the working class:

  • In Act 1, Helen says to Jo: “That’s where we all end up sooner or later” 

  • By Act 2, Jo says: “So we’re back where we started”

• When Jo leaves home, she finds herself in a similar situation to her mother, which presents ideas about generational cycles:

  • In the exposition (opens in a new tab), Helen says that Jo, like her, is “not very fond of work”

  • In Act 2, Jo’s flat is messy: Geof comments, “I can tell it's yours from the state it’s in”

  • Helen tells Jo that she has to consider cost when she finds a new home

  • Jo, when she moves into her own flat, tells Geof: “I've got to work all day in a shoe shop and all night in a bar to pay for it”

Stagecraft

• Delaney’s naturalistic style presents a brutally honest depiction of social issues in 1950s England

• The play is an example of social realism: 

  • It portrays working-class characters disillusioned with modern society

  • Helen and Jo’s rundown flat is in an industrial area in the North of England

  • Jo is underfed, and Helen resorts to drinking and promiscuity

• Delaney breaks the fourth wall to create audience engagement:

  • When Helen and Jo argue, they often comment to the audience, referring to each other in the third person  (opens in a new tab)

  • Helen asks for support from the audience: “Wouldn't she get on your nerves?”

  • Jo’s comments raise key ideas: “So that's what she was running away from”

• Delaney uses music to signal key events: 

  • There is jazz music playing when Jo and Helen move into their flat

  • Helen sings when she has fond memories of a freer life: “I thought it was wonderful... You know, playing the piano and all that”

  • Music accompanies Peter’s fateful arrival

• Nursery rhymes represent the idea of motherhood and a happy childhood:

  • Children sing nursery rhymes outside Jo and Helen’s flat, which serves to emphasise Jo’s lack of a real childhood

• Often, music accompanies moments when Jo and Helen feel hopeful:

  • A traditional wedding song “Here Comes the Bride” plays when Helen and Peter plan to marry

  • Jo’s hope for a different future to her mother is implied when Jimmie (the Boy) sings to the audience and Jo dances

  • Jo sings a song to end the play as she thinks about Geof

Language

• Delaney’s script is made up of colloquialisms (opens in a new tab) and regional dialect:

  • Helen tells Jo: “You're asking for a bloody good hiding, lady”

  • She says of Peter’s arrival, “Look what the wind's blown in”

  • Jo remarks about being in films: “I'd sooner be put on't streets. It's more honest”

• Characters insult each other regularly when they feel unsupported or disrespected:

  • This creates a dark humour which shows how troubled individuals mask painful feelings or take their disappointments out on each other 

  • For example, when Helen tells Jo she is always “bathing”, Jo replies, “I'm not like you. I don't wait until it becomes necessary before I have a good wash”

• Sarcasm portrays characters attempting to be resilient while feeling powerless:

  • Helen’s self-deprecating comments conveys a lack of self-esteem, while also creating humour:

    • She tells Jo, “I know, I'm a cruel, wicked woman”

  • Helen jokes about her terrible living conditions, saying her bed is “Like a coffin only not half as comfortable”

Imagery and symbolism

• Delaney uses symbolism (opens in a new tab) to highlight key themes

• Engagement rings symbolise fragile or uncertain relationships

• Helen values rings as tokens of financial security, while Jo wears hers around her neck to show her hesitation about marriage:

  • When Peter asks Helen if the “little lady” wants an engagement ring, Jo says their “courtship had passed the stage of symbolism”

  • Delaney shows Helen willing to give up her dignity for the “odd diamond ring”

  • Jo wears her engagement ring around her neck, perhaps because of her uncertain feelings about marriage

• Personal belongings contribute to Delaney’s characterisations:

  • Peter’s wallet full of pictures of other women represents his deceit

  • Jimmie (the Boy) has a “toy car” in his pocket, implying innocence 

  • Jo’s drawings represent her lost potential

• Flowers represent the cycle of hope and hopelessness:

  • Peter’s proposal is accompanied by a bouquet of flowers 

  • When Jo plants flower bulbs, she says “I hope they bloom. Always before when I've tried to fix up a window box nothin's ever grown in it”

Sources 

Delaney, Shelagh (2008), A Taste Of Honey (Edited by Glenda Leeming and Elaine Aston), Bloomsbury Academic.

Capitani, Maria Elena, 'A New Reality: Shelagh Delaney’s A Taste oHoney (1958)', in Sue Kennedy, and Jane Thomas (eds), British Women's Writing, 1930 to 1960: Between the Waves (Liverpool, 2020; online edn, Liverpool Scholarship Online, 20 May 2021), https://doi.org/10.3828/liverpool/9781789621822.003.0013 (opens in a new tab), accessed 22 Sept. 2025.