AustLit

Masgrau-Peya examines 'the representation of home and the domestic myth in Mansfield's 'Prelude' and in Hanrahan 's The Scent of the Eucalyptus, concentrating on their simultaneous presentation of the fiction of domestic bliss and the repudiation of the ideological tenets that inform it.' Masgrau-Peya argues that being 'unhoused' for most of their adult lives, Mansfield and Hanrahan eschewed the 'comforts of either home or conventional family'. Their writing, even when recognising the 'warmth and security' of family and the 'comforts of home' also acknowledges 'the politics of repression, exclusion and exploitation that make them possible.'