Poetic Defamiliarization in D.H. Lawrence's Bat and Elizabeth Bishop's The Fish
Abstract
This paper gives a close-reading analysis of the symbolizations of animals that appear in Lawrence's and Bishop's works. The application of defamiliarization is combined with similes that compare animals with other objects and symbolizations that deliver messages and emotions from writers. Lawrence's Bat applies similes that compare bats with artificial objects that seem weird to describe an animal, but he intentionally creates such an alienated and estranged sensation to defamiliarize the figure of the bat to suggest an anti-anthropocentrism perspective of viewing the bat. Furthermore, Lawrence applies the symbolism of the darkness of the bat to contrast with other symbolizations of brightness, such as swallows, to give his praises to the bat. In Bishop's The Fish, Bishop applies similes from a perceptual perspective that imaginatively defamiliarizes the entrails of fish with vivid colors and peonies. While the entrails of fish are usually viewed as valueless and ignorable, Bishop offers a new perspective on finding their aesthetic value. Bishop's creative esthetic pattern could be a resistance to traditional views and hegemonic ideas that used to dominate people's thoughts. This paper concludes that Lawrence's and Bishop's poetic defamiliarizations indicate modernist ideas that reveal the reality concealed by traditional ideas by presenting new perspectives on viewing and appreciating things that bear prejudices.
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