Comparative Analysis: Colonial Narratives in Tay John and The Revenant

This essay undertakes a comparative analysis of colonial narratives as depicted in Howard O’Hagan’s novel, Tay John, and Alejandro González Iñárritu’s film, The Revenant. The assignment explores the representations of colonialism, focusing on the discourse surrounding the suppression of Indigenous populations in the United States and Canada. It examines how both works subtly critique the colonial power structures by highlighting the historical suppression and misrepresentation of Indigenous cultures. The essay discusses key themes such as the creation of narratives that portray Indigenous peoples as uncivilized, the impact of white settlers, the loss of tribal culture, and the role of myth-making and storytelling in shaping cultural traits. Through the characters of Hugh Glass and Tay John, the essay analyzes how these narratives present the struggles and survival of Indigenous communities, the distortion of their way of life, and the imposition of an alien lawlessness. The analysis considers the significance of elements like the grizzly bear in The Revenant and the role of legends and oral traditions in both narratives. The essay concludes by emphasizing the importance of Indigenous perspectives and the need to re-evaluate colonial activities by centering the experiences of those who were marginalized.

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Discuss the representations of colonial narratives in Howard O’Hagan’s Tay John and
Alejandro González Iñárritu’s 2015 film The Revenant
Introduction
Semiotics has become an important area of study and is a great source of understanding a
narrative as well as detecting the change in the narrative. In this assignment one written work has
been taken into consideration along with the movie. Tay John is written by Howard O’Hagan and
the film The Revenant which is directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu. What the assignment is
attempting to do is a comparison of the movie and the book so as to arrive the similarities and the
discourse that both have to offer in their respective narratives.
That one thing which is common in both these works is that the two works go on to indicate, in a
very subtle way, the discourse of colonialism in USA and The Rockies (Canada). The Indians
have a long history of suppression and what has made the colonial power to rule is the creation
of the narrative of being dark skinned, uncivilised and incompetent through the process of make-
believe.
Discussion
As Homi Bhabha has said that there is one kind of conspiracy of silence that is being woven
around the colonial truth. While this may be true or false, there have been enough scholars who
have tried to present the bottom-up narrative of the colonial eras of different countries. Here
bottom-up perspective would mainly relate to the explanation of the situations of colonization
from the perspective of the colonized and not the colonizer.
America and Canada has always had their own discourse of colonization. The Indians have a
narrative while the Whites have another narrative. Since both the parties are, at present, co-
existing in both the nations, the narrative keeps taking shapes and turns with every scholar trying
to develop a perspective.
Starting off with the movie The Revenant that was released in the year 2015, we can say that the
movie sets a new narrative for the Indian and the Whites who had tried to gain control over them.
The lawlessness that they thought the Indians had been nothing but a well guided tribal culture
that was distorted with the intrusions of the whites. In the movie, the role of Hugh Glass played

by Leonardo DiCaprio stands as the mirror to this truth. Though he does not become
instrumental in exposing this subtly, the actions that builds up around him goes on reflect on the
very notion with which the French and the British settled in USA and parts of Canada. They
brought lawlessness as can be seen at from the actions of all thee white characters. Powoqa may
be seen as becoming the metaphor for the loss of tribal culture and indigenousness that was there
in the Indians which got abducted and raped by the whites in the movie.
From movie, if we come to the novel Tay John then we see that here to there is preparation of the
narrative by which the intrusion of the White force is brought to discussion and we see that the
novel here comes to making a point of starvation, disease and helpless of the folk that already
existed. The gold ore only belonged to them and not to them.
The forces of nature are appreciated by the natives in the form they appear. The author goes on
to prove the point that forces of nature was much of an importance than what men did by
processing the natural elements and trading it.
In both The Revenant and Tay John we see that the law with which the Indian or the indigenous
tribes operated was principled on peace, prosperity and a system that was well connected with
the nature. In The Revenant the Arikara tribe appears to be the one suffering from the abduction
of the daughter Powoqa and in Tay John the indigenous sufferings have been brought to the
surface.
The grizzly bear in the movie looks like to be standing for the superstition that always existed in
the pagan culture. One can say that the bear stands as a damaging factor because the director also
wants to explore the facts that the pagan elements in the Indian culture stands unexplained a lot
of times and has also been more regressive than progressive.
In Tay John, we see that a myth building is in action. When we refer to literatures, from colonial
or post-colonial perspective, we see that myth plays an important role in directing and redirecting
a course of action. Both the leading characters in both the works becomes become legend and
one can say that both the works embody within them the elements of tall tales. There is creation
of legends. Both the stories go in show or depict harsh struggle and survival.
The process of storytelling becomes important as has it involves a process that is deductive in
nature and it reduces from authoritative legends to inconclusive legends.
The basket making in the Shuswap people grizzly bear in the movie The Revenant has its own
significance. The idea of basket making says that nature and the elements of nature is built up
within things that were not visible to human eyes and an attempt to make the basket is
recognizing the basket in nature which is perfect and is indestructible with passing time. The
basket is the imitation just as the story telling is the imitation of the legends that actually happen.
This also brings in the Platonic interpretation that imitations are going to twice replace human

beings from reality. And, fir this reasons, he rejected the idea of Art which was later defended by
his disciple Aristotle.
The simple tale of is altered through words of mouth and becomes a story which has the power to
create its own discourse. We can say that legends in Tay John appeared from oral
misinterpretation of the facts. Often it goes that to tell a story includes leaving out most of it.
Sticking to representation of colonial narrative in both the works, we can say that legends and
myth making along with story-telling has led to development in many of the traits of culture that
is being practiced even till today.
We see that a significant role is played by the bar room which includes men drinking and talking.
Both the story of Hugh Glass and the legend of Tay John are examples of tall tales as they go on
to create legends that was to be passed down verbally in glorification.
Conclusion
The narrative of colonization from the perspective of the colonized is something that remained in
the words of mouth and was much later that the marginalized colonized folk took to writing. The
culture of uncivilized (as the colonizers had said) was a different form of civilization that was not
heard of for quite a long time until initiatives started to be taken to narrate the colonial activities
by keeping people like Tay John and Hugh Glass at the venter rather than the periphery.