The device or technique I'm looking for is used to describe something mundane or ordinary in order to make it seem alien or special.
For example, the following quote from Slaughterhouse Five:
In a tiny cavity in her great body she was assembling the materials for a Green Beret
In that instance, a woman becoming pregnant is described, but it is written in such a way as to make it seem completely foreign. I think Hemingway was also known to use the technique, but no examples come to mind.
I've read briefly about the term before. I remember it being called something close to "dissociation." I'd like to read more writers that use the technique and practice it myself, so I'd like to know what the precise term is.
Thanks!
Answer
It is called defamiliarization, or making the ordinary feel less familiar. Whether through amplification, switching register, or choosing different words, the familiar becomes less familiar.
Related concepts include ostranenie (Viktor Shklovsky, a Russian formalist, used this term when he claimed that defamiliarization is a central function of art) and Verfremdungseffekt (playwright Bertolt Brecht used the term to define the distance he wanted to create between audience and characters).
Wikipedia provides a fair overview of these concepts. Also, Kip Wheeler's online dictionary of literary terms doesn't look great, but he's also an expert, and the definitions are well-sourced from credible guides.
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