The Art Of Defamiliarization In The Remains Of The Day

Kazue Ishiguro,born in Japan in 1954,is considered as one of the most outstanding novelists in contemporary Britain.His works are famous for his extensive subjects,deep excavation of human weakness,and exquisite writing style.The Remains of the Day is his masterpiece,which has made him well-known over the world.Many decent researches have been made on this novel abroad and in China.Most of them are about the analysis of the theme based on the essence of Post-colonialism and New Historicism.There are also some studies that focus on the unreliable narrative in this work.Yet few of them have done the research on the art of the writing style based on the tenets of “defamiliarization” in it.This paper,guided by the ideology and methodology of “defamiliarization” proposed by Victor Shklovsky,one of the Russian Formalists,aims to analyze the author's craft of defamiliarization on narrative strategies in regard to point of view,plot construction and language in this novel.By doing so,how defamiliarization as a writing technique contributes to setting the calm tone,characterizing a lost butler,building the fascinating plot,and deepening the theme is demonstrated as an initial exploration of the literariness of this work.