The Concept of Intertextuality in Ian McEwan’s Atonement

Intertextuality is an important subject in literary studies. As a term, it was introduced by Julia Kriesteva in ۱۹۶۶. The main idea of intertextuality is the shaping of a texts' meanings in the light of another. Consequently, there is no text, rather intertext. Other critics and theorists developed this theory. Atonement involves many intertextualities (implicit and explicit) to famous figures and works. The aim of this paper is to show how McEwan uses intertextuality and how this technique is used to develop the themes, characters, and narration of his novel, Atonement.

Keywords:

Ian McEwan , Atonement , Intertextuality , Kriesteva