Painted Tongue Poem Analysis

The world Boyden sets “Painted Tongue” in is depressing, and very real, but what makes this short story so powerful is the character Boyden creates to inhabit and criticize such a broken system.

Beginning in residential school, Painted Tongue is called heathen by a religious school teacher, and after a while, he starts to question if maybe he is a heathen (Boyden 72-73). Boyden is illustrating the relationship between colonizer and colonized, with a repression of one’s spiritually by the preaching of another’s religion. This is another example of the effects of slow violence on Painted Tongue, where small differences such as contrasting religious or spiritual faiths, become the oppression of the minority

opinion.
Painted Tongue recognizes the effects of colonization in the loss of his land, in the lies, as well as the raised prices of booze and cigarettes (Boyden 55). Although small factors in comparison to, for example, the normalization of violence in degenerate zones, Painted Tongue is affected by them on a day to day basis, and these are some of the factors that he fights hard against (Razack 144). And, in the scope of slow violence, small factors eventually add up.
Boyden shows the loss of indigenous land in Painted Tongue’s interactions with the city, and it’s inhabitants. Painted Tongue does not feel a sense of belonging anywhere he goes, with sections of the city being off limits, and people asking him if he should go back to his reservation (Boyden 57-70). This disconnect from the city allows Painted Tongue to become something of a polemical character, in other words, Painted Tongue’s perspective on Toronto is critical to the point of controversial. The purpose of creating a polemical character is to criticize the world that this character inhabits. An example of Painted Tongue as polemical is how critical of the construction of the Skydome he is. He is both critical of the workers, identifying some as lazy while others as hardworking, and critical of the building itself (Boyden 57-61). Like mentioned before, the building scares him due to its capacity to shelter and feed people for extended periods of time, while entertaining them (Boyden 61). Painted Tongue is so disturbed by this building that he wishes to blow it up with “a thousand kilos of dynamite” (Boyden 61). What Boyden is accomplishing by basing the short story in the perspective of a polemical character, is a postcolonial narrative that deconstructs a seemingly innocent space, Toronto. Boyden is bringing awareness to a minority's perspective of the city which is important because this overlooked perspective is critical of a system that is labelled good by the majority of its inhabitants. Also, Boyden creates a character who is brave enough to express his opinions against the system.
The residential school repressed both Painted Tongue’s language, his individual identity, and his spirituality, or rather his cultural identity. Painted Tongue had a teacher who would call him a heathen and preach down to him, thus repressing his spirituality. Painted Tongue noticed his native tongue is lost when he tries to recall one of his mother’s songs, and the words get mixed with English (Boyden 61-72). Furthermore, Painted Tongue has entirely lost his ability to speak due to an embarrassing lisp he developed as a child that forced silence upon him (Boyden 61). Even his name, Painted Tongue, was forced on him by the other kids (Boyden 61). In this sense Painted Tongue has lost his identity, with no voice, no name and no cultural identity it is hard for him to express himself, and yet he finds a way.
Painted Tongue’s primary form of expression is violence.

He protects his territory against intruding joggers, prepares to defend himself against a fat, white nurse, “stares down an ugly woman in tight shorts”, even frightens a young child and protects himself against teenagers in a warrior-type fashion (Boyden 54-76). The amount of violence he commits is in fact non-existent. Even when he needs it most, to protect the gay jogger being attacked by the skinheads, he cannot find his “warrior song” (Boyden 64-65). In the end, when defending himself against the teenagers, Painted Tongue’s only form of attack is to gently count coup on his victims, or rather, gently touch them (Boyden 74-76). He potentially comes to a tragic end when one of the teenagers trips him and sends him unto his broken bottle (Boyden 76). This may be Boyden’s way of saying violence is not the answer, it is not the correct way to fight back against colonialism. Frantz Fanon would entirely disagree with this statement, with his opinion being that “decolonization is always a violent phenomenon” (35). In other words, no battle can be fought without bloodshed, and decolonization is no exception. According to Boyden, however, violence is not the most effective way for Painted Tongue to fight back, so what is?

Although violence is not Painted Tongue’s only form of expression, some of his other ones, such as humming and mimicry, are heavily influenced by other people’s perception of him and thus limit their effectiveness. Unfortunately, it seems as if these forms of expression are a better tool against colonialism than violence, but they never reach their full potential due to the limitations forced upon them. These limitations are predominantly stereotypes or generalizations, which are contributing factors of ongoing

colonization.
Instead of speaking, Painted Tongue hums. He hums his war song when protecting his territory, and when expressing his identity (Boyden 56). He hums to communicate emotions like someone else might yell or cry, but this humming disturbs, even frightens people (Boyden 54-65). The most prominent case of this is when Painted Tongue hums his death chant to the dying gay jogger, and realizes how terrifying and peculiar it must have been for him (Boyden 65-66). At this moment, Painted Tongue recognizes the real effects of stereotypes on his expression. When Painted Tongue is only trying to protect his turf through humming, or sing for a dying man, those who hear him humming think he is crazy (Boyden 54-65). For example, when he hums in fear in the hospital, a nurse suggests institutionalizing him to the doctor (Boyden 56-57). The stereotype of the crazy, drunk homeless native is forced on Painted Tongue. He even gets called “Whisky Joe [and] crazy drunk [and] fruitcake” when he walks down the street (Boyden 58). And although he certainly is a drunk, he is far from crazy. His acute sense of being and his in-depth understanding of his relationship to the city and other people are not traits of someone who should be institutionalized. However, Painted Tongue is aware that “the people in this city [are] not capable of understanding” (Boyden 58), and thus he must find other forms of expression.
A significant moment in the short story is when Painted Tongue mimics the Iroquois Wind Spirit mask (Boyden 60). This is an example of a limitation on Painted Tongue’s expression where generalizations and stereotypes limit the tools of expression Painted Tongue is exposed too. Painted Tongue first sees the mask in the Native Canadian Centre, a generalization that all indigenous peoples might respect this spirit (Boyden 60). Painted Tongue’s father, in fact, was killed by the Iroquois Wind Spirit, for the Ojibwa and Iroquois are old enemies (Boyden 68). Lacking a strong cultural identity (recall his has been eaten away by the residential school), Painted Tongue is forced to use the tools at his disposal, which are not always accurate depictions of the culture he is trying to express. These stereotypes are being identified by Boyden as harmful products of colonization that are unseen and inhibit Painted Tongue from being able to reach his full decolonist potential.
As mentioned before in this essay, Boyden recognizes that colonialism or the colonist mindset is still present today. An enormous factor of colonialism is negative stereotypes aimed at minorities, for example, the stereotype of the ‘drunk Indian madman’ also mentioned before. Razack’s essay identifies the destructive nature of the stereotype in the trial of Pamela George, connecting stereotypes to dehumanization (149). To be dehumanized is proof enough that the western culture is still holding onto a colonial mindset with the colonized being seen as lesser. However, dehumanization does not end there, it also disconnects the dehumanized from their culture, thus stealing one of the only tools of decolonisation that the colonized possess. According to Boyden, expression of one’s cultural, and individual identity is the only way to successfully push back against colonialism without the use of force.
Painted Tongue fights back against colonized space by claiming space and protecting against intruders. In this sense, Painted Tongue feels a sense of belonging and safety. One example of his territory is the rock on the waterfront that he protects against intruding joggers (Boyden 54). Although perpetuating the ugly stereotype of the crazy Indian, Painted Tongue is expressing that he belongs, and he will fight for it. The fight for what is his drives Painted Tongue and will help him reclaim his cultural identity. This drive is also seen in his obsession to get the money that Kyle, his old friend, still owes him (Boyden 62). The fact that Kyle so readily conformed to Western culture and Painted Tongue did not, also furthers the theme of Painted Tongue’s inability to let go, to move on. There could potentially be a connection to the colonial mindset of progress, with Painted Tongue swimming against the current, which Boyden paints a picture of in the scene where Painted Tongue slowly walks through the crowds of people causing them to split and make way (Boyden 58). But what is important is that Painted Tongue takes back colonized space and fights for what is his, and he does so without violence.
But is the battle worth fighting? Kyle successfully conforms and seems happy; Painted Tongue even appears to be happy for Kyle. So why does Painted Tongue fight so hard against colonialism? Besides a desire to reclaim space that is rightfully his, he struggles to reclaim an identity that he lost in residential school, an identity that without, leaves him in a state of colonial limbo. Colonial, in the sense that there still exists social and economic differences between Painted Tongue and a seemingly vast majority of Toronto. And Limbo in the sense that he lacks a voice, a home, and a history. Painting Tongue is not merely fighting for his safety, but for his identity, both cultural and personal.
In a city defined by its divisions, Boyden creates a character who recognizes and criticizes the effects of colonialism imposed on him. This character, Painted Tongue, finds alternative forms of expression when he lacks a voice, home and culture in a fight to reclaim his cultural identity. Boyden is bringing light to the slow, unseen effects of colonialism today, and suggesting remedies against it in the form of expression. Arguably Boyden’s literature is a form of postcolonialist expression that tries to decolonize, just like Painted Tongue uses physical forms of expression to decolonize. In relation to Boyden’s literature however, decolonization happens through raising awareness, which may be the only way to remedy the colonist mindset that is so deeply rooted in Western society.