In some ways, Mimi McVicker can be compared to Penelope, the long-suffering wife of Odysseus. Parker was familiar with that Greek myth, but in both poetry and fiction she rewrites the tale, making the waiting wife a little less patient and compliant than Penelope. As in the Penelope section of The Odyssey, "The Lovely Leave" is a war story told from a domestic point of view. We see the effects of war on the women who wait at home.

A number of Parker's contemporaries wrote war fiction that may have influenced Parker, or that offer interesting comparisons. Ernest Hemingway's In Our Time (1924; enlarged 1925; see separate entry), as well as his war novels are relevant, since Parker was a great admirer of his work. Rebecca West's The Return of the Soldier (1918; see separate entry), Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway (1925; see separate entry) and Between the Acts (1941), and Stevie...