Charles Baxter’s “On Defamiliarization”

Charles Baxter’s “On Defamiliarization”

In his essay “On Defamiliarization,” I found Charles Baxter’s approach on informing about characterization very helpful. The technique of presenting the familiar in an unfamiliar way keeps the story and the characters interesting and relatable. Otherwise, really, what is the point of writing down a story if the characters and the central theme are “true”, but familiar and cliché to the point they don’t mean anything anymore to the reader? It reminds me of the generic Hollywood romances that do well with the same formula (Popular boy + ugly duckling girl + some tension= movie hit) but are soulless. I’ve seen countless of those types of movies advertised over years. Sometimes even fangs added to the mix, but essentially, they’re still the same as the other movies. The characters are cutouts which people can project themselves onto, nothing more. A quote from the reading that I found especially helpful was, “…Characters who are entirely likable or admirable—who are remembered in the way that funeral elegies remember people---have a tendency to become either allegorical or bland. Narrated this way, they don’t stay in the memory…” (23). So, in other words, writers need to show our truths in new ways to avoid unintentionally building the reader’s contempt for the characters we meant them to understand, if not like.

- K De Melo