(A response to "On Defamiliarization")
1. The content, single, thirty year old woman
2. The well-adjusted teenager
3. The friendly, non-embarrassing, happily married parents
4. The likable bachelor (seen occasionally in fiction as the one "she doesn't choose")
5. The college student who doesn't have sexual thoughts about older men
6. The quiet grandfather who is not descending into dementia (he's not a veteran either)
7. The grandmother without a deep dark family secret (she really does like just baking cookies!)
8. The young man with nothing to prove
9. The young woman who knows exactly why she is in love with her boyfriend (and she doesn't find handsome foreigners the least bit attractive)
10. The older sibling with no psychopathic tendencies whatsoever (or the unself-centered younger sibling)
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haha, this was funny to read. i imagine all of these people sitting around for possibly the most boring dinner party imaginable.
ReplyDeleteI don't know. I think there might be a certain magic to a story about a well-adjusted teenager.
ReplyDeleteYou might expect to find him in a story with elves and orcs and other things that don't exist in reality.
I think this is a very clever response to "Defamiliarization". It perfectly captures what the author was trying to say. Mainly that most stories find themselves replete with cliches and that this should be avoided at all costs. You have taken that and provided the antithesis to these overgeneralized archtypes. Well done.
ReplyDeleteI like this, this is a great point. They can be very forgettable yet extremely necessary for lots of stories.
ReplyDeleteI like number five and ten. But at the same time, I feel like these seemingly drab characters can be used in combination to contrast or highlight other, more unique characters in a story
ReplyDeleteHa! I would add the socially liberal rich white landowner with a heart of gold, the foreign exchange student who doesn't have the least bit trouble fitting in, and the fat kid at school who has no issues with self-image because s/he is, you know, good at lots of things. Although, the young man with nothing to prove has probably appeared in some good fiction already. I was thinking of The Stranger by Albert Camus after I read that.
ReplyDeleteThe college student who doesn't have sexual thoughts about older men
ReplyDeleteThat one cracked me up the most. I'm probably going to end up using it one day in a conversation about this or something related to someone creepy.
I also enjoyed the fact that you just listed them without a back story to each item like a lot of people may do.
Though they are "common characters" each one, with the right back story, can be really good. I mean, every story has been told. I guess that just leaves people to write fantasy and horror, which all have basically the same theme as well. It was funny though.
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