The Use of Irony in Report to the Nation

Kaylyn Locklear

Dr. Jesse Peters

ENG2200

28 Nov. 2016

The Use of Irony in Report to the Nation

Report to the Nation: Repossessing Europe is a short story that was written by Osage writer Carter Revard.  Revard grew up on a reservation in Pawhuska, Oklahoma.  He was one of the first Native Americans to receive the Rhodes scholarship from Oxford University in England.  He earned his PhD in English Literature from Yale University in 1959.  Revard is known for combining Western literary customs and Native American principles in his work (Carter Revard 2016).  In one particular publication, Report to the Nation: Repossessing Europe, Revard makes clever use of irony to bring attention to the traumatic history of the American colonization faced by Native Americans.

In the first line of his story, Revard states, “It is impossible to civilize the Europeans” (333). This statement shows the direction in which the writer intends to take his audience by turning the tables of history to propose his view on European colonization and immediately grabbing the reader’s attention.  Throughout history, it has been taught that Christopher Columbus discovered America and is one of the many men that laid the foundation for the colonization of America.  It is widely known that Columbus, upon his own suspicion, informed King Ferdinand that it would be impossible to civilize the Native Americans.  The irony in his Revard’s statement “It is impossible to civilize the Europeans,” is that it parallels directly to how Columbus felt about the Native Americans. 

Revard writes, “Whether they understood that France now belongs to us was not clear, but they were friendly and they fed me well…” (333). The Europeans received the same treatment when they arrived in the foreign land.  When the white settlers first arrived in America, the Native Americans treated them well, feeding them, and teaching them to be hunters and gatherers.  The Europeans were foreigners to the Native Americans, but they still treated them with great hospitality.  In fact, without the help of the Native’s, the first group of settlers would have never survived in the new land that they knew nothing about (Christopher Columbus Facts 2010).  The European settlers did not expect the Natives to treat them with such hospitality and to be so friendly to them.  Instead of being mistreated by the Natives, the settlers were treated with great kindness, ironically, the Natives did not receive the same treatment from the Europeans.