Abstract:

One of the representatives of contemporary British philosophy and novel, Iris Murdoch is a writer who puts the literal depth of her works based on philosophy and puts moral concerns in the foreground. Author reflects her own moral philosophy in her works and glorifies the themes of love and goodness. The Italian Girl, written by Iris Murdoch tells a family story woven with dark secrets, forbidden relationships and embarrassing truths. In this novel, author who takes advantage of intertextual references brings a visual and multi-layered aesthetic. In this study, it is researched that how author uses the aforementioned referencing and in which sides she enriches the text by investigating The Italian Girl novel. As per outcomes of the research, it is observed that intertextuality is used as a text enriching method in creating perception, and portraying the physical and psychological situation of novel persons. In this end, author takes advantage of some artists’ such as Matthias Grünewald and Gislebertus works, Caliban from William Shakespeare’s play The Tempest, Medusa and Hesperos from Greek mythology while portraying physical outlook of novel persons. In the novel, Mother Teresa from the religious female figures, psychoanalyst and writer Lou Andreas Salome, and Alice from Alice in Wonderland are mentioned in order to make psychological portraits apparent. In addition to this, it is seen that Biblical quotes and the narrative of Adam and Eve are used as religious referencing. Thus, it is determined that Iris Murdoch makes novel persons’ physical change and physiological journey apparent and enriches the text based on words thanks to the references she uses