Chapter 13 defamiliarization

This picture, I see, seems to me to be the queen of these pictures. It showed a woman, drawn in what I thought was larger than life.Weigh the lady on a large scale, and I estimate she weighs about one hundred and ninety-six to two hundred and forty pounds.She must have eaten well enough to eat no less meat—not to mention bread and vegetables and drink—must eat a lot to grow so tall and plump.She was reclining on the couch—why, it was an indescribable position; it was bright daylight all around.She looked strong enough to hold two cooks at work; she couldn't possibly have a sore back; she should have stood up, or at least sat up straighter.What reason does she have to lie on the sofa to pass the afternoon?Besides, she should have dressed decently—a nightgown or something to cover her up, but she didn't.Look at the dress--twenty-seven yards, I think, so much material--that she made such a full-on garment.Looking at the mess around me, it really shouldn't be.Large pots and small pots—maybe vases and wine glasses—are rolling all over the floor, with some withered and broken flowers interspersed with them.There was an absurd pile of curtain trimmings piled up on the couch all the way to the floor.When I checked the catalogue, I found that this famous painting was marked: "Cleopatra the Peerless Beauty."

Charlotte Bronte, Villette (1853) ① Queen of Egypt from 51 BC to 30 BC. "Defamiliarization" is the English translation of ostranenie, (literally, "to defamiliarize"), another invaluable critical term coined by the Russian Formalists.In a treatise first published in 1917, Viktor Shklovsky argued that the fundamental purpose of art is to overcome the numbness of habit by representing the familiar in an unfamiliar way: The habit of swallowing objects, clothing, utensils, characters' wives and fear of war... The meaning of art is to help people regain the feeling of life; the meaning of art is to make people feel things, turn cold things into cold of.Art aims at imparting to people the sense of things not according to well-known facts but according to perception.

This theory justifies the distortions and confusion of narrative that occur in modernist works, but it is equally applicable to the analysis and understanding of important examples in realist fiction.The example Shklovsky cites comes from a passage in Tolstoy's book in which Tolstoy describes an opera performance from the point of view of someone who has never seen or heard it, thus giving The opera uses extremely powerful irony and ridicule ("Later, more people ran out and dragged the girl. The girl was wearing a white skirt, but now she was wearing sky blue. The gang didn't drag the girl away immediately, but sang with her for a long time, and then dragged her away.") Charlotte Bronte satirizes and ridicules the fine art exhibit in the same way in the above-quoted description of Villette .

Villette is a fictitious place name that actually refers to Brussels.The heroine, the narrator Lucy Snow, is forced to make ends meet by teaching at an all-girls boarding school here.She secretly fell in love with an English doctor named John Brighton, although she knew that this love would not be fruitful.Once the doctor took her to an art exhibition, but left her alone when he got there, which was quite in line with the heroine's independent and unruly temper. The painting in question here is clearly a portrait of a nude woman, its large scale, finely drawn, and the use of mythological and historical subjects, all of which indicate that this painting belongs to high art.But the contradiction between reality and art was far more prominent in Charlotte Bronte's era than it is in modern times, because the custom at that time required women not to expose any part of their body at any time.With the help of what the heroine has seen and heard, Charlotte exposes the contradiction between reality and art.Putting aside the development history of art and the "habitual" appreciation perspective, she placed this painting in the real life of women to give a real description, thus fundamentally exposing the hypocrisy of this art.

The women in the painting are huge and richly dressed, which is a common phenomenon in traditional art appreciation; here, the weight and quantity are calculated using empirical and quasi-scientific calculations: "One hundred and ninety-six to two hundred and four Ten pounds . . . look at the costume, I think it's twenty-seven yards." Classical nudes were customary for costumes, which wrap around the figure in pleats and actually cover nothing but the genitals.We are so used to it that we don't see its hypocrisy.The arrangement of objects in the painting is the same: there are always various objects in the foreground of this type of painting—some of the people in the painting have time to do housework, or there are servants to take care of it, why do they always make a few goblets upside down piled on the floor?A series of questions raised by Lucy looking at paintings are usually ignored by people in the process of appreciating paintings.The woman's reclining, erotically seductive, tired pose is ridiculed because the heroine finds it out of place in broad daylight;Lucy hides the title of the painting "Cleopatra" at the end, which also implies that the title of the work is arbitrary. Even if some works are based on history or mythology, their titles are also deceptive.

sex.As far as this painting is concerned, we might as well title it "Dido", "Dilera", or (more appropriately) " Odlisk ③". ① The legendary queen and founder of Carthage. ② The mistress of Samson in the Bible. ③ Female slaves, maidservants and concubines in the harem of Islamic countries. This description itself does not make any progress in the narrative, and the story "pauses" here for a transition.But this description has its narrative "function": First, it helps to portray the character of Lucy Snow, making people realize that although she has no beauty, no status and property, it is inconvenient to talk about it at ordinary times. But she has a strong character, unconventional views, and quite a sense of independence.Second, an interesting scene in the presence of M. Paul Emanuel is shown.Emanuel, also a teacher at Lucy's school, is grumpy and unlovable, but does an excellent job as a teacher; Lucy later discovers that he is much better than the plausible Dr. There is a sense of reality.Paul Emanuel was stunned to find her standing in front of "Cleopatra"—a reaction that suggested his ignorance of art appreciation.He was indifferent to the so-called high artistry of the painting, on the contrary, he still clings to the stereotypes that men and women are separated, thinking that such a picture is not suitable for young women to look at.So he hastily dragged Lucy aside to show her another painting, this one showing three sentimental scenes from the life of a woman named Joan of Arc; ’ is just as ridiculous and far-fetched.

Charlotte Bronte died young, and "Villette" was her last novel and also her most mature one.For reasons such as those indicated in the quotation above, the novel has been the subject of contemporary feminist criticism.But Charlotte, through the defamiliarization of women in historical paintings, not only puts forward her own views on sexual strategies, but also on art, especially her own creative art.Her early writing was full of the hypocrisy and dream-come-true elements of melodrama and romance, a mode from which she has gradually and painfully parted ways.Lucy Snow once said before this quotation: "A masterpiece with a unique style is as rare as a good book with a unique style." "Villette" is such a masterpiece.

What do we mean when we say that a certain book is "unique"—a commonplace compliment?Here it does not refer to the author who is usually said to have created unprecedented works, but refers to female writers who deviate from the traditional and customary way of reflecting reality, so that we can "recognize" what has long been "familiar" in the conceptual sense. derecognize". "Defamiliarization", in short, is another word for "uniqueness".I will also resort to this term from time to time in talking about the art of the novel.