“The Italian Girl” by Iris Murdoch

However far away the life brings us from our native place, there is always a moment when we need to return to the roots. In this very moment we meet the narrator of “The Italian Girl” written by Iris Murdoch, a prominent representative of postmodern British literature. Having escaped from the oppressive influence of his mother, Lydia, in his youth, Edmund couldn’t find enough strength to get back to his family up to her sudden death. Now, many years later, Edmund comes to the funeral, where he will meet his relatives, about the life of which he has only a vague knowledge based on a few brief letters. He doesn’t notice any changes at first glance – the same old house, the same family of his brother and the unchangeable Italian servant. But one occasional confession of Edmund’s niece makes him see that the relations between his relatives are more confused than they seemed to be and Lydia’s house keeps many more secrets…

The Gothic atmosphere

One of the most interesting features of postmodernism is that it can give a new life to old movements, genres and methods. It could seem that the gothic genre remained somewhere in 18^th century but Murdoch’s novels make a perfect use of it. “The Italian Girl” presents an ideal implementation of gothic elements, due to them the novel gained this unique mystical atmosphere that sets the background for the quickly developing events.

Murdoch immerses both the reader and the narrator into this atmosphere with the very first scene in which Edmund returns home in the dead of night. Enigmatic shadows, eerie sounds, moonlight, someone’s silhouette suddenly appearing in the dark – all these tiny details, simultaneously frightening and enchanting, make the reader believe in the existence of a sinister mystery, hidden behind the walls of the old mansion.

The mansion itself becomes a variation of a bizarre medieval castle – a traditional interior of a gothic novel – and although it is not inhabited by ghosts, bats or dusty skeletons, they are substituted by the dimness of the house, a mysterious Italian servant and Lydia’s room that always frightens away by its dark atmosphere.

Restricted setting also adds to the gothic air of the novel – almost all the events take place in Lydia’s house or around it, moving to a nearby town only twice. Limited space and a small number of characters condition the plot of the novel to the certain extent – the relations between the characters develop very quickly, the passions get intense and the narration slow in the beginning speeds up towards the end.

The atmosphere of a funeral that forced the characters to get together also creates the necessary mood and even after the end of the ritual, the spirit of ever gloomy and autocratic Lydia seems to fly around the house affecting all the members of the family.

The reader is also to come across strange and perplexing events, which, however, pretty soon get a quite logical explanation. For Lydia’s house is not a medieval castle after all and its inhabitants are usual people although definitely a bit peculiar. Iris Murdoch is a master of mystification; she plays with her characters like a puppeteer with puppets. By the way, the puppets themselves are also worth discussing.

The system of characters

The novel, as we already know, is narrated by Edmund who comes back home and right into the centre of events. Murdoch gives him the role of a “naive” observer, who has no idea about the relations inside the family and therefore has to untangle the tight net of their connections. Thus, the narrator and the reader appear in the same conditions – one knows not more than the other, and they both discover all the event and secrets simultaneously. Introducing such type of narrator the author manages to manipulate the perception of the novel, because the emotions that Edmund goes through unveiling new and new mysteries of the old house inhabitants are shared by the reader to some extent.

But Edmund can’t stay merely an observer forever and pretty soon he finds himself right in the middle of the family drama and becomes one of the actors on the stage who make the situation even more complicated.

The other characters, “inhabiting” the novel are not numerous, there are only six of them – Edmund’s brother Otto, his wife Isabelle and daughter Flora, Otto’s apprentice David with his sister and Italian servant Maggie. At first sight the character system may seem very simple but only until Edmund pulls a string that makes a thousand little complications fall on his head like confetti.

The Italian Girl

At this point we approach the title of the novel. Why the Italian girl? Why is the novel named after a servant woman?

The image of Maria Magistretti or Maggie as the family calls her is perhaps the most prominent in the novel. In the beginning of the story her image is rather a type than a proper personage, something ephemeral, almost a ghost, she moves soundlessly across the house, taking the stage at the most unexpected moments and suddenly disappearing without a word.

Edmund doesn’t even give a detailed description of her appearance – black hair, pale face, dark clothes – these few features only add to her secrecy and obscureness. That is all the reader gets to know, even her age is rather vague. In the family perception her images intervenes and mingles with the memories of other Italian servants who lived in the house:

«Otto claimed he remembered being wheeled by Maggie in his pram, but this was certainly a false memory: some previous Carlotta, some Vittoria merged here with her image; they were indeed all, I our minds, so merged and generalized that it seemed as if there had always ever been only one Italian girl».

Maggie is the same outside observer as Edmund but not as much naïve for sure. Being so silent and invisible, the Italian Girl still turns out to be aware of all the family secrets and perhaps even knows more than each separate character of the novel. She seems to collect the mysteries, putting them away into the box of her memory and waiting for an opportunity to use them.

But only when the conflicts reach their climax threatening to turn a small family drama into a Greek tragedy, the Italian Girl will take the stage and play her actual role…

“The Italian Girl” is a marvelous work of art, even for the fact that some two hundred pages could combine a huge number of events and emotions. Such bright features of a postmodern novel as playing with the reader, mystification, unreliable narrator and multilayered structure make it interesting both for experienced readers and for those who have recently discovered postmodern literature.