Defamiliarization in Mari Sandoz's Crazy Horse

"[I]t will be argued in the present study that Sandoz's so-called "Indian voice" should indeed be regarded primarily as a stylistic device which employs lexicalization, calquing, figurative language, and clause chaining to indulge in the creative impulse called "defamiliarization." This technique emboldens an author to select language structures to intentionally disrupt conventionalized or habitualized meanings and thus restore freshness to textual perception. First coined by Viktor Shklovsky, a critic of the Russian formalist tradition, defamiliarization was understood as the main goal in art and poetry that intended to transform the familiar or mundane into the unfamiliar and strange in order to offer new perspectives." -Guillermo Bartelt (Introduction)