| Lydia Davis was awarded the Man Booker International Prize for literature in 2013.Her stories are so special that juries of Man Booker Prize comment that her works in style are extremely difficult to categorize. Davis' works are notoriously short-the shortest is only one sentence, the longest is but a dozen pages, and mostly they are about three or four pages. Davis' works are anti-traditional both in form and content. For example, generally her works do not have plots, but instead are records of a mood,thought or scene. Since she won the Man Booker International Prize, Davis and her works have attracted the attention of the literary and academic circles in the Western world and thus she and her short stories have become a hot topic. Since collections of her short stories Almost No Memory and Varieties of Disturbance were translated into Chinese respectively in 2015 and 2016, Chinese readers and academic circles have come to know her and her works.However, compared with the great honor conferred on her, studies of Davis and her works are rather limited. Also, most of the extant studies focus only on the narrative techniques and on several of her stories. The present author, in her reading of Davis'stories, is impressed by their unique charm, and proposes that this charm has originated from "defamiliarization". Defamiliarization is against people's conventional understanding of the world, and aims to help people break away from such cognitive restraints, so that they can see things as they did for the first time in their lives. This thesis is to analyze the tensions created through the use of defamiliarizing tactics and techniques in The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis, and the important roles of such tensions in thematic expression and aesthetic effect.The thesis consists of six chapters. The body part is composed of four chapters, each of which analyzes defamiliarization in Davis' stories in one aspect. Firstly, the thesis analyzes defamiliarization in nomination of characters and its effect. Defamiliarization in nomination of characters is achieved in two ways: using obscure references or naming them after their ethical identities. This defamiliarizing tactic creates tension between the signifier and the signified, which helps draw readers into the storyworld. Consequently,causing readers to "experience" others' lives. Secondly, the thesis discusses defamiliarization in point of view and its effect. Davis' stories often include a female narrator with multiple identities. The internal focalization of such female narrator enlarges or deforms things that readers are familiar with but always take for granted, and make them appear strange. Thereby helping readers to capture instantaneous feelings and gaining a new understanding to life. Thirdly, the thesis discusses defamiliarization in language. Defamiliarization in language in Davis' stories is mainly displayed in three aspects: extraordinarily frequent use of repetition,meticulous description, and economy in words. Defamiliarization in language creates tension between foregrounding and automation. The foregrounded language enables readers to adopt a new perspective to the apparently common things in their lives. Lastly, the thesis analyzes defamiliarization in plot, which is displayed in three ways: cutting a plot into fragmented pieces, alternating between unrelated plots, and emphasizing the fictionality of the text. Defamiliarization in plot creates tension between readers' horizon of expectation and the new text form. Thus inducing readers to see the fragmentedness of the world.Defamiliarization—creative textual deformation—creates a series of tensions through defamiliarizing tactics and technique, which endows Davis' works with unique charm. It is the defamiliarizing tactics and technique in Davis' short stories that make the readers' lives appear new. |
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