Victor
Shklovsky’s Device of ‘Retardation’ and Indian Folk Tales
-A.Charumati Ramdas
Victor Borisovich
Shklovsky (1893-1984), one of the founder members of Russian Formalism, in his
famous work “On the Theory of Prose” put forward his theories of literature.
Shklovsky believes that presentation of life in literature is not accomplished
through ‘content’ but through ‘form’. The formal aspect of literary work
consists of such devices , among others, such as Затруднение (defecilitation),
Отстранение
(defamiliarisation or making strange), Замедление (
retardation), parallelism, contrast and many others. Shklovsky declared that
all works of art are merely sum total of the devices in them. He also examined
how these devices are stringed together in literary works of various authors.
In this paper, we
want to discuss Shklovsky’s technique of ‘retardation’ and examine some Indian
folk tales in the light of this technique.
“Why walk on a
rope, and rest after every four steps?” asked Saltykov Schedrin about poetry.
Anyone who looks at a work of art as an organized piece can understand it. One
can also understand why King Lear does not recognize Kent? Why Kent and Lear do
not recognize Edgar? He also understands why in Indian films the mystery of two
estranged brothers is solved only at the end, why the hero has to leave the
scene while someone else is narrating facts.
This is the way the
art takes – curved, full of obstacles, often taking one backwards. There is no
short and straight way to the goal. The goal of a work of art is to convince or
to generalize something. To achieve this goal, sometimes a work of art has to
be divided into miniature parts so that its construction acquires a ladder-like
appearance. This ladder-like composition consists of such elements as – recurrence,
tautological parallelism, psychological parallelism, retardation, epic
repetitions etc.
One frequently
comes across repetition of same or similar words in Russian folk songs: (Чудным чудно, Дивным дивно);sometimes
the prepositions are repeated(Во славном во городе во Киеве; Кто бы нам сказал / про старое, про старое, про бывалое, про того ли Илью/ про Муромца? ).
Sometimes the same word is repeated in
two adjacent lines of a poetic stanza:
Того ли соболя заморского,
Заморского соболя ушистого,
Ушистого соболя пушистого.
There are many
other incidents of repetition found in literary works. Sometimes repetition is
materialized through negation:
“She took a direct
way, not a zigzag one”,
Sometimes synonyms
are repeated.
But the aim of this
device is to obtain a ladder like, slow, retarded form.
Tautological
parallelism with repetition of strophe is called ‘retardation’. Here is an
example from a song about Ilya Muromets:
Выезжал Илья на высок бугор,
На высок бугор на раскатистый,
Расставлял шатер-полы ьелые,
Расставлял шатер, стал огонь сечи,
Высеча огонь, стал раскладывать,
Разложа огонь, стал кашу варить,
Сваря кашу, расхлебывать,
Расхлебав кашу, стал почив держать...
Such examples of
retardation are scattered in folk songs, but the critics probably chose to find
life, soul, philosophy in them and did not pay adequate attention to these
incidents of ‘retardation’.
The reasons for such repetitions could be
attributed to the fact that these folk songs were passed on from generation to
generation. The initial work could be considered like an amoeba, to which over
the centuries, were added repetitions from singer to singer.
One should take notice of the fact that
during these ‘retardations’, the action does not freeze, but develops very
slowly. Let us look at the following example:
“ My dear sister Anna, please climb up on
the tower and see whether my brothers are coming: they have promised to come
today; and if you see them, give them a signal so that they come fast.”
The sister
climbed up on to the tower, and the poor girl shouted: “Anna, sister Anna, do
you see anything?”
“I only see
the dust shining in the Sun and the green grass.”
In between
the Blue Beard, holding the kitchen knife in his hand shouted with all his
might: “Come down, fast, or I’ll come up!”
“One
minute, please,” answered the wife. And she said slowly to her sister:
“Anna,
sister Anna, do you see anything?”
And the
sister answered: “I see only the dust shining in the Sun and the shining
grass.”
“Come down
fast,” shouted the Blue Beard, “or I shall come up!”
“I am
coming,” the wife answered again and then again shouted to the sister:
“Anna,
sister Anna, do you see anything?”
“I see,”
answered the sister, “a fast approaching cloud of dust.”
“They are
my brothers?”
“Oh, no,
sister. I see a herd of oxen.”
“Come down,
at last,” shouted the Blue Beard.
“One more
minute,” answered the wife and shouted to her sister:
“Anna,
sister Anna, do you see anything?”
“Yes, I
see,” replied she,” two riders, coming towards us, but they are still quite
far.”
“Thank
God,” she shouted after a minute, “these are our brothers. I shall give them
signals, so that they come fast…”
This format
is, by the way, quite common in folk tales of England.
It can be
seen that the action develops like an arithmetic progression:
A + (a+a) +
[a+ (a+a)] +……etc. the same elements are added to the previous elements and so
on.
We probably
remember the tale heard in the childhood, which is constructed along the same
pattern:
“There was
a cock. There was a sparrow. The cock had a house of cow dung, while the
sparrow’s house was made of wax. Once it rained heavily in the evening, cock’s
house was washed off.
The cock
came to the sparrow and knocked: ‘Sparrow, sparrow, open the door!’
Came the
answer, ‘ Wait, I am bathing the little one.’
The cock
knocked again, ‘Sparrow, sparrow, open the door!’
Came the
answer, ‘Wait, I am dressing the little one.’
The cock
knocked again, ‘Sparrow, sparrow, open the door!’
Came the
answer, ‘Wait, I am making the little one sleep.’
The cock
knocked again, ‘Sparrow, sparrow, open the door!’
This time
the sparrow opened the door…
There is
one more pattern of constructing the plot i.e. according to the formula :
a
This is
very well demonstrated in the tale from The Panchatantra: Mouse-Maid made Mouse.
“Once upon a time there lived a sage on the banks of a river. He
and his wife did not have any children. One day when the sage was praying in
the middle of the river, an eagle happened to pass by and the eagle dropped a
female mouse in the hands of the sage. The sage found the mouse in his hands on
opening his eyes, and took it home to his wife.
On reaching home, he talked to his wife about the mouse and they
decided to convert the mouse into a young baby girl. The sage and his wife
began to take care of the girl child and brought her up as their daughter. The
child grew day by day to a beautiful maiden by the age of sixteen. At this age,
the sage decided to find a match for the girl. He and his wife decided that the
Sun God would be an ideal match for their girl.
So the sage prayed for the Sun God to appear, and once the sun god
appeared asked him to marry his daughter. But his daughter said, "Sorry! I
cannot marry the sun god because he is very intense and I will be reduced to
ashes in his heat and light.". The sage was displeased and asked the sun
god to suggest a possible groom. The sun god suggested the name of the Lord of
the clouds. For, the cloud can easily stop the rays of the sun.
The sage then prayed for the lord of the clouds and once he
appeared him took him to his daughter. The daughter once again decided not to
accept him as his groom. She said, " I do not want to marry a person as
dark as him. Moreover, I am afraid of the thunder he produces". The sage
was dejected once again and asked the lord of clouds for a suitable groom. The
lord of clouds suggested, " Why don't you try the lord of wind, for he can
easily blow me away".
The sage then prayed for the lord of the wind. On the appearance
of the wind-god, he took him to his daughter. His daughter rejected the groom
saying that she cannot marry such a feeble person like the wind god who is
always on the move. Dejected once again the sage asked the wind-god for a
suggestion. The wind-god suggested the lord of the mountain which was rock
solid and stopped the wind easily. So the sage then went to the mountain lord
and requested him to marry his daughter. But the daughter once again rejected
the mountain lord saying that he was too cold-hearted for her to marry and
requested the sage to find somebody softer. The mountain god then suggested a
mouse to him, because the mouse is soft and yet can easily make holes in the
mountain.
This time the daughter was happy and agreed to marrying a
he-mouse. So the sage said, "Look at what the destiny had to offer you.
You started as a mouse, and were destined to marry a mouse in the end. So be
it". He then converted her back to a she-mouse and got her married to a
he-mouse.
As
we see here, the pattern is like:
Sun
To
preach the moral that ‘Nature is hard to beat’ the tale was constructed using
the technique of ‘Retardation’.
Examples
of ‘retardation’ can be observed in the Indian classical music too, when a
singer renders different ‘Taans’ and comes back to the same line time
and again till he goes to the next line of the classical composition.
The
aim of ‘Retardation’ is to create a piece of art which a reader or a listener
feels. The reader impatiently wants to go ahead and very often skips those
places where the retardation occurs. ‘Retardation’ thus helps in sustaining the
reader’s interest in the narration.
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