Topic > Examples of Defamiliarization in Kholstomer: A Horse's Tale by Leo Tolstoy

Weirdness helps us break out of our old eyes and see the world in a slightly new way. Seeing things in an unfamiliar way will allow us to look more closely at things that people assume are true without asking questions because they stigmatize them as “common” or just “usual.” This is the premise of Kholstomer: The Story of a Horse by Leo Tolstoy. Kholstomer, the story of the horse, presents the technique of what we have called defamiliarization, in the sense that it adopts the perspective of a horse to show some of the irrationalities or illogicalities of human freedom. It seems that people make the word defamiliarization unfamiliar or pretend that this word is new or strange to them but knowing that there is a prefix -de which indicates denial or removal and familiarized refers to having knowledge or understanding of something. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original EssayAccording to Viktor Shklovsky, defamiliarization is a literary device by which language is used in such a way that ordinary, familiar objects seem different. The importance of this technique is to help demonstrate the boundary between reality and their art. Even though some literary works are constantly extolled for real-life faithful feelings, authors or writers still consider them to be a reflective art and the use of defamiliarization will help them remind readers of this fact. In the story of the horse it is connected to defamiliarization because the author uses alienation to denounce people's ignorance about something, especially about human civilization and moral value. Almost every part of the story has been defamiliarized because it is told and can be seen from the point of view of a horse who can make humans enjoy ordinary things in a different light. Tolstoy makes use of estrangement to such an extent that he provides most of the evidence for the concept of defamiliarization or estrangement in his essay Art as Technique. According to Shklovsky, the poetic image is a means of creating the strongest possible impression. His impression is that "art is thinking in images", which implies that the greatest possible impression is obtained when perception is impeded and the greatest possible effect is produced through the slowness of perception. In relation to Tolstoy's story, anything within the text, its contents and its concepts can be seen as estrangement or defamiliarization. It makes familiar objects unfamiliar by not naming them. The use of a horse as a narrator is the very use of estrangement because it is the horse's point of view, and not that of a human, that makes the concept and content of the story seem unfamiliar. Tolstoy's work, the story of a horse, begins with a sunrise which is shown in the same way that the day is revealed within the story and its description is somewhat explicit. The introductory part deals more with the depiction of the natural world as the sky rises higher and higher and the dawn broadens and the crescent moon becomes lifeless which characterizes the pastoral setting of the story. Another is the castration scene which is missing instead of representing it as an empty space. Thinking that it is made out of fragility, but this seriously implies that it led readers to imagine a horrible or frightening event. Instead of including the castration process, the author excludes it for some reasons to make it unknown to the readers. From the horse's sense of sight, the world has changed and becomes repulsive, it is like a plant that withers and does not agree withthe castration effect as an expression of the author's desire to be relieved of what he considered to be the agony of sexual lust. "Old age is sometimes majestic, sometimes ugly, and sometimes pathetic. But old age can be ugly and majestic, and the gelding's old age was just of this kind." This passage precedes the depiction of the word 'piebald gelding' but the most important thing is to note that this occurs before the description of the horse. The piebald gelding seems unknown because in the text it says that the horse does not know what the true meaning of that word is. The strangeness in which the piebald gelding is described in the story is intended to add a compassionate quality through alienation. But since this is the perception of the animal, the horse had to appear not so much in comparison with man as in opposition to man. It is up to readers to change their perception of the ruined old horse and, instead of disgust, become fond of him. The relationship between the piebald gelding and his mother shows the significance in the scene where he tells about his family background and his type of life. relationship he has with them. Meaning as an important contrast in sexual morality which can be seen in the story where the mother is selfish because she abandoned her son for her own pleasure and romantic interest. Motherhood in the story shows strangeness because as we all know, that mother is kind, lovely and loves her children which cannot be described in words. While in the story, Tolstoy exposes the greed of mothers, he is also right because, as we have observed, "some" mothers also did what the mother horse did to her child. Relatedly, the mother's injustice suffered by the young horse in the story can also be seen as a crime against nature. Furthermore, the horse tried to reflect on the existence of “private property” and describes it in an unusual way. “There are people who call a piece of land their own, but never take a walk on it. There are people who consider others to be theirs, yet never see them. And the whole relationship between them is that the so-called “owners” treat others unfairly.” From the Horse's point of view, the significant relationship between people who own others is not the notion of ownership rather, the Horse sees and understands this type of relationship by deeds or actions or through actual interactions and by how the owners treat those they call " mine” or badly owned. “The words “my horse,” in relation to me, a living horse, seemed to me as strange as the words: my land, my air, my water.” In this way the narrator himself introduces the idea of ​​ownership and private property which implies no responsibility, no action, but only a label. In relation to this generation, there are women who refused to be owned because when there are men who label women as their own as their wives, but it is sad to say that these women live with another man. It is this affection for property that distances humans not only from the other animals we have seen in the story, but also from each other as in the interaction between the landowner and Prince Serpukhovsky. Through the use of defamiliarization, the saddle in the story is described as a sort of torture instrument for the horse because the piebald gelding comes out of it and has a slight grunt in which he is scolded and his straps are tightened to such an extent that he is restricted . The former owner, Nester, is implicitly named in the saddle which makes the scene visceral. The piebald gelding, on the other hand, realizes that nothing is to be trusted and that in all horses and men they are the same due to their inconsistent actions and that everything is unpredictable and he feels thesethings but no one understands him instead they just mistreat him because of his spotty appearance. The authors denounced the injustice of human beings through alienation. Before addressing the passage as a whole, the author has alienated the expression "good for nothing" which literally means "rubbish or waste", which can also be used to describe an inferior being.entity and when it is applied to some objects animated. “Nester put the saddle pad and saddle on him, and this caused the gelding to collapse on his ears, probably to express his discontent, but for this he was only called “good for nothing” and the saddle girths were tightened.” Another is “At this point the gelding blew” which means to swell or fill up and also has a colloquial figurative meaning “to sulk”. The latter would seem to be the most appropriate reaction to “tightening the girths”. And this is how the author used alienation or defamiliarization in the text. In the story the prince arrives and is offered thousands for the piebald, which he promptly refuses. “No, he said, this is not a horse, but a friend, I would not exchange it for a mountain of gold”. But these words are strange because they will oppose the twist of fate, thus strengthening the narrator's statement on the matter. Right before, the relationship between the horse and the Prince is very strong because the Prince valued the horse more than a human even if its appearance is not good for others and this implies a good friendship without any discrimination. The piebald gelding and the prince fly to his mistress' apartment, where actions and words are confused. The enraged prince then pushes the horse, which makes for the strangeness of the story where the readers know that the prince is different from Nester who tortured the horse but they are wrong because the prince pushes the horse away from him. Subsequently, the piebald gelding was sold to an elderly woman who proves that she is not a "Christian soul" or has no empathy and faith in God due to his wrongdoings. Alienation was used in the text from the horse's point of view: “The coachman was crying in my stable. And there I understood that tears have a pleasant, salty taste." In this sympathetic scene, in which the gelding licks the coachman's face in an attempt to comfort him, the most important thing is the connection between “tears” and “pleasant” which gives the whole thing a bittersweet texture. Bitter for the word “tears” and sweet for the word “pleasant”. The author Leo Tolstoy makes use of a defamiliarization of the word used in reference to the pregnant woman of the parallel guest which is better translated as “landlady” which does not indicate their relationship. It will still remain unclear or nebulous whether she is wife or lover since the word “lover” has been used. Perhaps readers are expected to think critically and dig deeper. The piebald gelding is so defamiliarized from other horses that it eventually becomes depersonalized as it is no longer considered and recognized as a horse as such by other horses. This implied that people envy those of higher status and despise those of lower status. And the expression of weakness, disgust, frustration at a helpless old age, desperation, drooping ears that seem to accept the joke of fate. To further expose reality, the piebald narrator focuses on its relativity. The horse recalls the “celebrities” of the herd “all together with their foals, walking in the sun, rolling on the fresh straw and smelling each other like normal horses”. This describes how alienation and classism, or the unfair treatment of people because of their social or economic class, was used. Another is status..