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In writing “A Taste of Honey”, what impact did Shelagh Delaney hope to have upon her audience? What techniques did she use to achieve these aims?

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 girl and her mother. The mother, Helen, who is a semi-whore, leaves her daughter, Jo, to get married to Peter. Jo has a relationship with a sailor and gets pregnant. The sailor then leaves for duty. Jo meets Geoff, they become friends and Geoff offers to help Jo bring up the baby. Helen returns after splitting up with Peter and wants Jo back.

The audience that Shelagh Delaney was writing for consisted mainly of middle class and upper class people. Her audience were used to seeing productions about characters leading similar lives to their own. The stereotypical play was where the men worked and the women stayed at home, cleaning and cooking. “A Taste of Honey” did not have these qualities at all. Shelagh Delaney’s aims were to shock her audience into seeing what the real world could be like. The audience of the time were relatively un-aware of the truth about working classes and their lives.

This type of play was new to the theatrical stage, and could take time before the “working class” plays would be accepted and appreciated. The upper classes were mostly unaware that the lower classes were leading such different lives to themselves. Shelagh Delaney’s play brought to light what the lower classes lives were like and the differences between the two classes. The plays of the time had very structured, clear story lines, with stereotypical happy families. Shelagh Delaney challenged these ideas about the ideal play along with many others.

Shelagh Delaney wrote the play to represent the working classes and their lifestyle. Many previous plays had used the working classes as their subjects, they seemed to act and be the same as the upper classes. This was not how the working classes lived and Shelagh Delaney outlined this very clearly in “A Taste of Honey”.

Although the characters live in a world where they are treated differently because of their class, race and sexuality, they still enjoy life. Shelagh Delaney represents this and puts forward ideas without prejudice.

        From this play we can see that Shelagh Delaney wanted to change theatrical productions to represent the working classes rather than the upper classes. In many previous productions the working classes had been represented as gloomy and bad tempered. She was not afraid to try new ideas, bringing a completely new angle to theatrical productions. The audience were now seeing plays about real people living in a real world, not ideal families living in perfect situations. The audience would have been shocked by the reality factor of this play.

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        Presenting the working classes in a play had been a problem to many previous playwrights. They had wanted to include them in their plays but had wanted to miss out the reality factor. Shelagh Delaney was not frightened to show this side of life and has overcome the problem by showing the working classes as they really are. She achieves this by presenting the characters as down to earth and creates an environment which is basic and slightly crude.  

        Shelagh Delaney understands that prejudice and discrimination are wrong. We can see this because she includes people from different races ...

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