In the fifties, there were very few black people and they were given low paid jobs in the service industries and hospitals. These three issues are all part of the story. Jo has a teenage pregnancy, Jimmie is black, and Geof is homosexual. There were no equal opportunities, for example, men got paid more than women in exactly the same jobs. Housing conditions in Salford were poor. Most houses were small, cramped and dirty. Many rented bedsits or flats often shared amenities like bathrooms and toilets, and this is the case in “A Taste Of Honey”.
“We share a bathroom with the community and this wallpaper’s contemporary. What more do you want?”
In “A Taste Of Honey”, Jo doesn’t call her mother “mother”. She calls her Helen. This shows that she doesn’t have much respect for her mother and wishes to live her own life, and not to be ruled over by someone who is not a good mother figure. I think Jo is lonely, as she hasn’t settled down in a school yet so she hasn’t had the chance to make any friends. Helen also treats Jo as if she is just something that’s there. She refers to Jo as “she” and “her”.
“Wouldn’t she get on your nerves?”
Helen also drinks a lot, and even though Jo isn’t treated as a real person, she still wishes her mother would stop.
“Drink, drink, drink, that’s all you’re fit for.”
With Jo wanting Helen to stop drinking, I think this shows that Jo is scared, that if the drinking carries on and Helen gets ill or something happens to her, then Jo will be alone.
Helen’s favourite past-times, which Jo disapproves of, are her drinking habits and sleeping around. Helen is not a good mother and she knows this herself, “Have I ever laid claim to being a proper mother?”
Helen hardly knows her daughter. This is made obvious when Jo decides to have a bath in the morning because it’s dark outside, and Helen replies, “Are you afraid of the dark?” whereas in any normal family, the parent would know if their child was afraid of anything with living with them for fifteen years.
Jo hates school. She has been moved from school to school and never settled in any of them, so she can’t be bothered with it, but she is very talented in drawing. When Helen finds some of Jo’s drawings, her only reply is, “I thought you weren’t good at anything.” Helen starts to encourage Jo by saying it’s very good, but then her sarcasm returns when she says, “I think I’ll hang this on the wall somewhere. Now, where will it be least noticeable?”
When we meet Peter, he enters with a cigar in his mouth. He seems very “cocky” and seems the sort of person who doesn’t really care for other people, as he is self-centred. He keeps telling Jo to go away, and tells Helen to “get rid of her”, because he just wants Helen for sex.
Jo doesn’t want to leave the two alone, and keeps interrupting because she is afraid that Peter will get the attention off Helen that Jo has always wanted. Also, Jo knows that Helen will abandon her and go off with new men she meets, as she has done it before.
When Helen goes out the room and Jo is left alone with Peter, she starts to question him. Jo sees some photographs in Peter’s wallet and demands to know who they are of.
“Can I see the other photos?”
She then starts to ask why he’s marrying Helen and asks if he fancies her. “Do you fancy me?” I think she asks this because she knows that her mother is beautiful, and she gets lots of attention off men, so Jo wants to see if she could be just like her. Helen is somewhat an “idol” to Jo, because she always asks people if they think Helen is beautiful, and she wants to be just like her… always getting attention from men. Jo, in a way, is jealous of Helen.
I think Jo is fairly independent for her age, as she is certain about what she wants to do. She wants to leave school and start working as soon as she can. This shows that she acts older than she really is and is mature for her age.
In scene 2, we are introduced to Jo’s boyfriend. In this part of the play, we know him as “Boy”, but later on we find out his name is Jimmie. He is a black sailor in the navy and he asks Jo to marry him. Boy is twenty-two, and Jo lies about her age and tells him she is eighteen. He questions her about what Helen will think about him because he’s a coloured boy.
Boy: “She hasn’t seen me.”
Jo: “And when she does?”
Boy: “She’ll see a coloured boy.”
I think Boy is worried about meeting Jo’s mother, as racial prejudice was a big issue in the fifties. Jo tells him, though, that her mother is not prejudice and will not mind, but at the end of the play when Helen finds out that the baby will be black, she starts to get mad. When she finds out, she says, “Oh don’t be silly Jo. You’ll be giving yourself nightmares.”
She thinks Jo is pulling her leg but she is serious. When she finally realises that it is true, she doesn’t care what people will think of Jo, but what people will think of herself.
“Can you see me wheeling a pram with a… Oh my God, I’ll have to have a drink.”
Boy has to go away for six months, and he reassures her he’ll be back. I think Jo ‘thinks’ she loves Boy, but doesn’t expect him to return, because when he says he is going, Jo says her “Heart’s broke”. Boy offers comfort by saying; “You can lie in bed at night and hear my ship passing down the old canal.” But when Boy starts to flirt with her in a naughty way, she says,
“I may as well be naughty while I’ve got the chance. I’ll probably never see you again. I know it.”
I don’t think that it’s true love between Jo and Boy, as Jo is young and every time they say they love each other, their replies to one another is always “how”, and “why.”
Boy: “I love you.”
Jo: “How do you know?”
Whereas if they really did love each other, they wouldn’t ask for reasons why.
Jo’s friend Geof, is very considerate and caring. We meet Geof in Act 2, Scene 1 after him and Jo have been to the fairground. Geof is a homosexual and he has been kicked out of his flat by the landlady because of this, so he’s been spending time at Jo’s. By this time, it is summer and Jo’s pregnancy is obvious. Helen has moved out after marrying Peter and left Jo alone.
Geof comes into Jo’s flat after the fair and is about to go but Jo literally begs him to stay.
“Geof, don’t go. Don’t go. Geof!”
I think Jo is scared to be alone, that she doesn’t know what she would do alone with the birth getting nearer.
Geof starts looking through Jo’s drawings and criticises them by saying he doesn’t like charcoal and that the drawings are exactly like Jo, with “no design, rhythm or purpose.”
When Geof starts telling Jo that a lot of money will be needed for the baby, she tries to ignore the fact that she’s pregnant and tells Geof to “shut up”, but Geof isn’t saying this to worry her, but to get her prepared and face reality. He cares for her and because Helen doesn’t know about the pregnancy, Geof thinks she has a right to know that she’s going to be a grandmother but Jo objects.
Jo’s relationship with Geof is a love similar to that of a brother and sister, as he is more into looking after her. I think Jo really cares for him too, as she begs him to stay over and she has a laugh with him as well as being flirty at the same time.
Jo: “Do you like beer?”
Geof: “Yes.”
Jo: “Gin?”
Geof: “Yes. Have you got some?”
Jo: “No, but if I had, I’d give it all to you. I’d give everything I had to you.”
When Jo and Geof go to bed, Geof questions Jo about Jimmie.
Geof: “A black boy?”
Jo: “From darkest Africa! A Prince.” She exaggerates as though it was a dream, or a fairytale. Just before they go to bed, Jo laughs and tells Geof, “You’re just like a big sister to me.”
A few months later, Jo and Geof are getting ready for the arrival of the baby and Geof’s making a baby gown while Jo wanders about the room. It is not something that the audience would expect a man or brother to be doing. It would more likely be a sister. I think Jo is nervous because the birth is very near and she is restless. She is very excited when the baby kicks, and tells Geof. Jo always seems to flirt with Geof, playfully putting her arms around him, but when Geof is serious about him and Jo, she backs off.
Geof: “Let me kiss you.”
Jo: “Let go of me. Leave me alone.”
I think this is where Jo becomes more mature and independent, as she knows what she wants.
“I think I’ve had enough. I’m sick of love.”
But then Jo realises that she can’t really cope, that the baby is perhaps more than she can handle and her hormones are getting the better of her.
“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.”
She realises that she wants Jimmie back, she misses him so much, and she wants the real father to her baby. “Every Christmas Helen used to go off with some boyfriend or other and leave me all on my own in some sordid digs, but last Christmas I had him.”
Geof thinks he is only welcome in Jo’s flat until she finds her next “Prince” and in my opinion, Geof is hurt.
When Helen comes to see Jo with Peter, Peter is prejudiced against Geof and calls him a “fruit cake parcel.” He is drunk and wants to go to the pub with Helen, and so he starts making his own fun by calling the flat Jo lives in, and calling Jo a “slut.”
Jo’s attitude towards Geof towards the end of the play changes for the better. From the way they both talk to each other you can see they have both grown up. Jo is more open to Geof about her relationship with Helen.
“You know I used to try and hold my mothers hands but she always used to pull them away from me. She had so much love for everyone else but none for me.”
When Jo says that, it actually makes the audience feel sorry for her, and disgusted with Helen, because Jo didn’t have a genuine mother figure. She also tells Geof about how Helen got pregnant with her. She tells him about how she was married to a Puritan, but wanted some fun so she had a “frolic in a hay loft” one afternoon with a “daft” man.
This shows that she feels secure with Geof and more confident with him as she tells him everything that happened and wants him to feel sorry for her and to understand her because she didn’t have a good childhood.
Jo starts to value Geof, as she realises he cares more than Helen. At the end of the play, Helen tries to hint that she wants Geof to leave so she can move back in. she thinks she could look after Jo better than Geof, even after the months she has missed.
“There wouldn’t be much room for two of us on the couch, would there?”
The only hint of love from Helen for Jo throughout the play is when Jo is having contractions and Helen strokes her hair, saying everything will be all right. This is the only time in the play when Helen is shown to be supportive of Jo.
It shows Jo is independent and has matured, because when Helen doesn’t know how to use the stove, Jo tells her, whereas this time last year, it was the other way around.
When Geof leaves, and Helen finds out about the baby being black, she says she’s going for a drink. This part reflects the beginning, when Helen abandons Jo at Christmas. Unfortunately just when Jo needs her mother the most, she leaves her yet again. When she’s out the door, Jo leans against the doorpost, remembering the good times with Geof and smiling to herself, as she recites a rhyme that Geof taught her.
This shows that she is now dependant on herself, and knows she can cope by herself, because she was left alone the year before, and knows she can do it again.
Jo’s “Taste Of Honey” was when she met Jimmie, but in my opinion, I think her “Taste Of Honey” was the time she spent with Geof, because he taught her a lot of things in life, and throughout the play you can see how she has matured, and adopted a more serious attitude towards life.
