A Study On Defamiliarization Of Klara And The Sun

Klara and the Sun is author Kazuo Ishiguro’s first book after winning the Nobel Prize for Literature.The novel is told from the first-person point of view of Klara,a solar-powered AF(Artificial Friend),who is bought by Josie,to be her companion.Since its publication,the novel has attracted the attention of many critics,and these critics have made an understanding of this novel from the aspects of the posthuman,ethical and thematic studies and so on.Some of them have also found the defamiliarization tendency in Klara and the Sun,but there is little systematic research on the novel’s defamiliarization.Based on a close reading of the text and guided by Shklovsky’s defamiliarization theory,this study makes an in-depth textual study of the novel from three aspects:language,narration and characterization.On the language level,the language application of defamiliarization is embodied in Klara’s unique language expression forms and rhetorical devices.Klara’s way of naming people and items and description of partitioning characters and scenes bring strange feelings to readers.The defamiliarization of common animal images shows Klara’s complex psychology.The anthropomorphic description of the Sun plays a crucial role in driving the story forward.On the narrative level,the narrator of defamiliarization—a robot,undoubtedly brings a sense of strangeness.Through Klara’s eyes,the reader is able to observe human society from an alternative perspective.At the same time,Klara adopts a unique narrative strategy in the narration process,which created suspense for the readers.In terms of characterization,the application of defamiliarization theory makes the robot Klara,the children and the adults in the article break away from the original traditional stereotypes,prompting readers to think about the key question of “what is the human heart”.Klara,as a robot,pays the most attention to the human heart,while humans believe that technology products can replace everything.In Klara and the Sun,Kazuo Ishiguro expresses his thinking on the relationship between technology and human identities through“defamiliarizing” language,narration and character images.The novel’s poetic language prolongs readers’ perception and brings readers unique aesthetic feelings.Therefore,this novel has become a masterpiece of aesthetic feeling.