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Introduction

  1. Significance of the thesis
    The  Known  World,  the greatest African American writer Jones' second masterpiece, tells about how a black slave named Henry Townsend gradually becomes a black slaveholder, and reflects the complicated relationships between people from different social strata under the institution of slavery. As soon as it was published, it won many prizes and became quite popular among readers and critics, who have reviewed it focusing on the power relationship, the reason why Henry
becomes a black slaveholder, the narrative strategies, and the effect of The Known World on the neo-slave narrative and so on. However, few people have probed into the factors which make the novel well-known with the theory of defamiliarization.
    In The Known World, some characteristics are similar to Shklovsky's opinions in some aspects such as language, narrative structure, perspective, plot and theme, which greatly surprise readers. According to Russian formalist Shklovsky, the aim of
art is to endow people with unfamiliar sensation towards the familiar things, to prolong the perception of appreciating, to increase the difficulty in reading, and to give the surprised feeling. By comparing minutely with the novel and what
Shklovsky contends, it is found that the influence The Known World has exerted on readers  seems  to  have  something  in  common  with  what  the  theory  of defamiliarization advocates. Therefore, it is necessary to explore the relationship between the distinction of the novel and the theory of defamiliarization so as to find out the reasons why The Known World, as a novel of slavery revealed and criticized by lots of writers, is quite popular and very successful.
    In view of the discovery above, the present author attempts to interpret The Known World by adopting the theory of defamiliarization. The purpose is to reveal how Jones achieves the effect of defamiliarization in the novel and to further
investigate the reasons why it is extremely popular. The analysis can disclose the relationship between the novel and the theory of defamiliarization, further explore the artistic value of the work, and reconsider the role of the black people under the institution of slavery. The thesis tries to propose a new perspective and a reference for the study of The Known World. Furthermore, studying the novel from the perspective of defamiliarization can provide an inspiration for the research of Edward P. Jones' other novels such as Lost in the City and All Azrnt Hagar's Children, for they have much similarity with The Known World.

2. Structure of the thesis
    The thesis is composed of four chapters. Chapter One mainly introduces the author Edward P. Jones including his birth, education, profession and literary achievements, The Known World and the theory of defamiliarization. The following pages analyze how Jones achieves the effect of defamiliarization in The Known、World by dividing them into three parts elaborated respectively in three chapters. The  defamiliarizing  effect  achieved  by  applying  many  rhetorical  devices  is discussed in Chapter Two, in which the present author mainly analyzes the author's skil_Iful usage of simile, metaphor本论文由英语论文网提供整理，提供论文代写，英语论文代写，代写论文，代写英语论文，代写留学生论文，代写英文论文，留学生论文代写相关核心关键词搜索。