Comfort, the Domestic and Women's Lives

Floating some academicky fodder for cross-pollination

Isn’t it always the way that when you are writing and/or researching something you find hints of it all around you? And that once you set your work free and discuss it more, it finds its way to other parts and is turned over and built upon and chattered about from new perspectives (ideally with a little shout-out to the original chatter-sparking writer! #TeamworkMakesTheDreamWork)

Well … that has been happening a bit. My Honours year research and writing at uni last year was focused on how themes of comfort and the domestic are used in fiction, with a focus on women and girls, and paying particular attention to Australian women’s fiction. I even created my own work of Australian women’s fiction to play around with my ideas, theories and findings.

My research suggests that the provision of comfort in women's writing aligns with the provision of comfort in the real world, taking cues from nursing’s comfort theory and seeing characters searching for (often self-administered) comfort and domestic ‘sweetness’ – as author Lucy Treloar would say – (Geelong Regional Libraries, 2024) when their lives are in turmoil.

I thought I would share a link to my research and creative work to provide some further context to those that have shown interest/picked up on these ideas. I’ve been toiling away for well over a year on it, so it feels like a good idea to open it up to people who want to read a bit more deeply. (If that’s not you, that is so fine!) There’s a great list of references attached to my research too, in case you want to dig further.

You can find my exegesis-of-sorts and my work of fiction here. I managed First Class Honours with this work, so I’m a bit proud of myself. The fiction piece comes after the exegesis (essay/explanatory text) which explains much more about my interest in comfort and domestic details in fiction,

And if that sounds so boring I GET IT. I am QUITE pleased to be out of the realm of academic writing now. It’s not my favourite, but it’s part and parcel of research and creative writing when you do a uni degree, so I made it work.

Thanks to everyone who has been excited to discuss and write about these ideas further. That stuff is so my cup of tea.

Pip

x

PS Back to more normal less academicky writing next post, I promise.

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Geelong Regional Libraries. (2024, February 27). Lucy Treloar - Days of Innocence and Wonder. YouTube.