A Tentative Study Of Defamiliarization In Dubliners

Dubliners written by James Joyce,is a collection of 15 short stories,depicting the paralysis and degeneration of the spiritual life of middle-class Irish people living in Dublin,the capital of Ireland.It was written in 1905 and published in 1914 after several frustrating delays.The book wins highly praise from a large number of people due to its significance in the literary world.Since its publication,people have analyzed the collection of short stories from different aspects,such as the thematic studies,the analysis of its feminism,existentialism,postcolonialism,and language features etc.But there are few people who have analyzed the defamiliarization of Dubliners.With the application of the theory of “Defamiliarization” advocated by Victor Shklovsky,the present thesis purports to argue that the high literary value of Dubliners attributes to the art of defamiliarization that James Joyce used in the collection of short stories by focusing on the defamiliarization in characters,narrative strategies,and language.The main body of the paper consists of three chapters:Chapter one is about the defamiliarization in characters of Dubliners.Through creating a number of peculiar characters and arranging the plots in a defamiliarized way,James Joyce narrated funny short stories full of suspense for readers in Dubliners.Chapter two focuses on the technique of defamiliarization in narrative strategies.In Dubliners,by adopting different narrative perspectives and inserting peculiar narrators,James Joyce led us into a strange and interesting literary world.Chapter three explores the defamiliarization in language of Dubliners from two aspects: the unique use of language and the rhetorical devices.The defamiliarized language and rhetorical devices add boundless charm to this collection of 15 short stories.Readers will be impressed by the uniqueness of language.Based on the analysis of the above three chapters,the thesis reaches a conclusion that James Joyce has managed to apply the arts of defamiliarization into Dublinerswith the purpose of increasing the difficulty of understanding,prolonging readers' perception of this work,and bringing readers a fresh reading experience.