59 pages • 1 hour read
Edgar Rice BurroughsTarzan of the Apes
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1912A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Character Analysis
Tarzan
Tarzan is the protagonist and hero of Tarzan of the Apes. He is the son of a British Viscount named John Clayton, Lord Greystroke, and his real name is technically the same as his father’s. However, he is given the name of Tarzan by the group of anthropoid apes who adopt him when he is a baby. Tarzan’s name means “White-Skin” (22) in the language of the apes, drawing attention to his physiological difference from both the apes and the ethnic groups in Africa he encounters. Burroughs uses Tarzan’s whiteness and European ancestry to explain his physical and mental “superiority” to both the human and animal inhabitants of the jungle. The story describes Tarzan’s strength as a result of his upbringing, relating that when Tarzan was only 10 years old, “he was fully as strong as the average man of thirty, and far more agile than the most practiced athlete ever becomes. And day by day his strength was increasing” (23). Additionally, even as a child “his superior intelligence and cunning” (25) allows him to trick the adult apes and keep himself safe from his mother’s mate, Tublat. Tarzan is able to teach himself to read and write as well as to intuitively develop forms of simple technology such as a rope noose and the full-Nelson wrestling move.
While Tarzan is disgusted by the cruel violence he observes in the nearby village and in the mutinous sailors who arrive on the coast, he is not averse to violence himself. Burroughs writes that Tarzan “killed for food most often, but, being a man, […] sometimes killed for pleasure, a thing which no other animal does” (49). Tarzan often smiles when he fights because he enjoys inflicting violence upon his enemies. However, Burroughs suggests that this is because Tarzan embodies humans in their “natural” and “primitive” state, uninfluenced by the rules of society, thus implicitly invoking the theme of Prehistoric Humanity and Evolution. Tarzan is not more inherently violent or “savage” than any other person; he is simply less restrained by rules and conventions of behavior. Burroughs suggests that while Tarzan does sometimes enjoy killing, he does not do it senselessly, instead killing only those who threaten him or whose actions he dislikes.
As an adult, Tarzan is described as physically large and exceptional, having long black hair and tanned skin. He is clean-shaven despite living in the jungle because he views body hair as a trait of apes rather than of humans. Rather than comparing Tarzan to the humans who share his home in the jungle, Burroughs often compares him to ancient European warriors, thus emphasizing his own racist tendencies to idolize those of European descent over those of non-white cultures. He describes his protagonist as having a “straight and perfect figure, muscled as the best of the ancient Roman gladiators must have been muscled, and yet with the soft and sinuous curves of a Greek god” (65). Burroughs foregrounds Tarzan’s European ancestry in these descriptions, affiliating his strength and speed not with the inhabitants of Africa, whom he portrays to be “inferior,” but with the ancient civilizations seen as precursors to white European society. These descriptions therefore support Burrough’s racist ideology that white Europeans were both physically and mentally “superior” to non-white people.
Jane Porter
Jane Porter is Tarzan’s love interest. She is a young white woman from Baltimore who is accompanying her professor father on a venture to find a Spanish treasure when they are marooned by a mutinous crew on the shores of Africa. She is described as a “girl of about nineteen” with a “brave and pretty smile” (69). Jane’s personality is shown to be rational, pragmatic, and fearless. While her Black servant Esmeralda often screams in terror or faints when they encounter frightening things in the jungle, Jane is able to remain calm. Whenever the behavior of the two women is described, Burroughs takes the opportunity to further his racist ideology by portraying Jane, the white woman, as being superior to Esmerelda. To support this view, the author shows Jane taking decisive action while Esmeralda “sob[s] hysterically, bemoaning the evil day that had witnessed her departure from her dear Maryland, while the white girl, dry eyed and outwardly calm, [is] torn by inward fears and forebodings” (77). Unlike Esmerelda, Jane knows how to fire a gun and manages to wound a lioness trying to break through a cabin window. Burroughs therefore portrays Jane’s feelings toward Esmerelda as maternal and somewhat condescending, and accordingly, Burroughs compels the character of Esmerelda to take on the characteristics of a child despite the fact that she herself had a key role in raising Jane. While Jane loves Esmerelda because the woman “reared her from infancy with all a mother’s care and solicitude” (81), Esmerelda is the one who “like a frightened child” runs to “bury her face on her mistress’ shoulder” (72). Through this dynamic, Burroughs capitalizes upon the racist stereotype of white people being more mature and responsible. Despite Esmerelda raising Jane from childhood, Jane’s whiteness means that she must take on the parental role to control and protect her servant.
When Jane falls in love with Tarzan, she faces a conflict between her upbringing and her desires, once again raising the issue of Nature Versus Nurture. While she enjoys the time that she spent with Tarzan in the jungle, she refuses to marry him because she does not think that she could ever learn to acclimate to living in the dangerous wilderness. She tells him, “You were never meant for the formal restrictions and conventionalities of society—civilization would become irksome to you, and in a little while you would long for the freedom of your old life—a life to which I am as totally unfitted as you to mine” (164). Jane is willing to sacrifice her own happiness for the sake of others—first agreeing to marry Robert Canler despite her hatred of him in order to help her father pay off his debts. She agrees to marry William Cecil Clayton not because she loves him, but because she does not want to hurt him by rejecting his proposal. Likewise, she rejects Tarzan because she thinks that trying to live in society for her sake would make him unhappy.
William Cecil Clayton
William Cecil Clayton is a supporting character and foil to Tarzan, representing the “civilized” English gentleman that Tarzan might have become had he not been raised in the jungle. As the son of the current Lord Greystroke, William Cecil Clayton is actually Tarzan’s cousin, although neither are aware of this when they first meet. While Clayton is a virtuous and brave man, he lacks the physical and instinctive survival skills that life in the jungle has granted to Tarzan. Burroughs introduces Clayton by showing his willingness to stand up to the villainous sailor Snipes; Clayton goes so far as to turn his back on the armed man in order to demonstrate his bravery. However, when Clayton ventures into the jungle to search for Professor Porter, his courage is unable to overcome his instinctive fear of his surroundings, for the scream of a leopard terrifies him beyond all reason. Clayton does his best to protect Jane and Professor Porter, but without Tarzan, he would be unable to fight off the wild animals that attack them. When he first meets Tarzan, he is impressed by and jealous of the other man. The prose emphasizes how the two characters’ different upbringings have impacted their ability to maneuver through the wilderness, as Clayton experiences a feeling of “keen admiration and envy of those giant muscles and that wondrous instinct or knowledge which guided this forest god through the inky blackness of the night as easily and safely as Clayton would have strolled a London street at high noon” (80). These comparisons between Clayton and Tarzan indicate that they come from equally good genetic foundations, but Tarzan’s lifestyle has developed him into a far superior man than Clayton is capable of becoming.
Because Clayton is in love with Jane Porter, he also serves as a romantic rival to Tarzan. After he insults Tarzan and offends Jane, he writes to her in a letter, “I would not have hurt you, above all others in the world” (128), hinting at his romantic feelings for her. While Jane initially seems to consider him a good prospect for marriage, her encounter with Tarzan confirms that she does not actually love him. She refuses his offer of marriage, despite the fact that he is also wealthy enough to settle her father’s debts. She tells him, “If I must disgrace myself by such a bargain with any man, I prefer that it be one I already despise” (159). While Jane does not love Clayton, she respects him and considers him to be a good man. In the end, however, she decides to marry him instead of Tarzan once she is free from the debt that currently chains her to Robert Canler. While Tarzan has the power to strip Clayton of his wealth and title by reclaiming his birthright as Lord Greystroke, he refuses to do so. Burroughs gives this decision to Tarzan, putting Clayton in the submissive position once again by showing that all of his power depends upon the more dominant man’s goodwill. Through this romantic plotline, Burroughs suggests that although Clayton is not an immoral person, British society and manners have emasculated him and rendered him inferior to the more “primitive” and powerful Tarzan.
Professor Archimedes Q. Porter
Professor Archimedes Q. Porter is Jane Porter’s father and serves as a comic relief character. He falls into the stereotypical role of the absent-minded professor archetype. He is a professor who discovered records of a buried Spanish treasure and took out loans to fund an exposition to find it. While he was able to find the treasure, he lost it to the crew when they mutinied on the return voyage and marooned his family on the African coast. Professor Porter is depicted as a ridiculous character whose obsession with intellectual propriety and decorum have made him entirely unable to survive in the wild. When he and his secretary Mr. Philander accidentally get lost in the jungle, they begin walking in the wrong direction down the beach. Rather than discussing any matter relevant to their survival, Professor Porter begins an entirely speculative academic debate while Mr. Philander attempts to point out that they are being chased by a lion. However, even the threat of a dangerous predator cannot distract Professor Porter from the debate, and he admonishes Mr. Philander by saying, “I find you guilty of a most flagrant breach of courtesy in interrupting my learned discourse to call attention to a mere quadruped of the genus Felis” (84). The use of technical scientific jargon and the absurdity of the situation creates a comedic moment in the story.
Professor Porter represents another counterpoint to the ideal man encapsulated by Tarzan. Professor Porter is a man who is entirely consumed by rationality and does not rely at all upon physical strength or natural instincts. While Tarzan balances his reason with strength, agility, and keen senses, Professor Porter is so overcome with his reasonable mental faculty that he misses the obvious danger posed by the lion. However, Burroughs hints that his condition is actually the result of grief. When Mr. Philander manages to shake him out of his overly intellectual state, Professor Porter’s dialogue shifts to a more natural Southern dialect. He claims that “God alone knows how hard I have tried to be ‘human’ for Jane’s sake, and yours, too, since He took my other Jane away” (86). His intellectual mannerisms are framed as being not fully “human,” but this is his way of escaping from the grief of losing his wife and having to raise a daughter alone. Professor Porter later volunteers to go into the jungle alone to search for Jane, suggesting that he is a good and brave man at his core, although his intellectual pursuits have given him silly and ridiculous traits.
