ASST. PROF. DR. MOURNING FOR THE LOSSES AND HEALING THE TRAUMATIC EXPERIENCES: IRIS MURDOCH’S THE ITALIAN GIRL

Abstract

This study aims to study about the analysis of trauma and the literary representation of the traumatized characters’ recovery in The Italian Girl by the contemporary Irish novelist Iris Murdoch. The aims of this study are to describe the portrayal of post-traumatic stress disorder experienced by the main characters in Murdoch’s novel “The Italian Girl” and the way of the main characters healing it in the novel. The Italian Girl deals with the problems of Jewish exile identity and lived experience as well as the recovery of identity and the elimination of trauma through coming to terms with the past. Using the psychoanalytic theories of Sigmund Freud and Jacques Lacan and the principles of trauma theory, this paper will present a close textual reading of  the novel and examine traumatized characters’ healing from traumatic past events to reconstruct and rebuild themselves and their lives.

 Iris Murdoch questions trauma and healing through the concept of family in this novel, which tells the story of an unhappy family’s struggle to confront its dark secrets and recover from them. Murdoch’s story of Edmund Narraway’s reunion with his estranged family and of the tragedy that shocks them all into confronting their dark past begins with his mother’s funeral. Edmund Narraway returns to his childhood home years after his mother's death and the tensions that have caused him to choose a lonely life away from his family slowly begin to surface. As the veil of mystery behind the events unravels, the tragedies and traumas of family history are unearthed. Focusing on the causes of trauma, traumatic symptoms and recovery, this study aims to explore the trauma of daily lives and the various psychological disorders caused by intertwined personal and familial histories.