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.
Themes
Nature Versus Nurture
Although the novel claims that Tarzan’s behavior is the result of his life among the apes of Africa, the narrative also establishes that he is sometimes prevented from violating social taboos by the more mysterious manifestation of his English heritage, and thus, Burroughs highlights the interplay between nature and nurture. Throughout the book, Burroughs stages comparisons between how Tarzan acts and how his aristocratic English relatives act back in England, often to mock the English for their physical weakness. However, as much as Burroughs seems to praise Tarzan’s ape-like instincts and physical prowess, he also implies that the protagonist’s intrinsically civilized European nature is the real reason why Tarzan never goes so far as to commit major social taboos. With this dynamic, the author implicitly places white British culture on a pedestal, for Burroughs suggests that Tarzan represents the best of both worlds—the power of an animal combined with the mind of a contemporary white man.
Throughout the story, Burroughs uses juxtaposition in order to explore how being nurtured in the jungle differentiates Tarzan from the rest of his bloodline. For example, when Tarzan is eating raw boar meat that he finds in the jungle, Burroughs writes, “Then Lord Greystoke wiped his greasy fingers upon his naked thighs and took up the trail of Kulonga, the son of Mbonga, the king; while in far-off London another Lord Greystoke, the younger brother of the real Lord Greystoke’s father, sent back his chops to the club’s chef because they were underdone” (46). This comparison humorously ridicules the English lord for complaining that his meat is not cooked well enough, suggesting that a human in his natural state would not mind eating food that was entirely raw. Burroughs also invokes an ironic tone by calling Tarzan by his title, Lord Greystroke, thereby emphasizing that Tarzan’s nurture is trumping his nature in this moment. Similarly, when Tarzan declares his victory over Kerchak with a fierce battle-cry, Burroughs claims that “the forest echoed to the savage and triumphant paean […] and the larger animals and beasts of prey slunk stealthily away, for few there were of all the jungle who sought for trouble with the great anthropoids. And in London another Lord Greystoke was speaking to his kind in the House of Lords, but none trembled at the sound of his soft voice” (57). Here, the implicit criticism of aristocratic masculinity is more apparent. Lord Greystroke in London cannot exert the political power that he has rightfully inherited because his voice is too soft to be heard in Parliament. Tarzan, however, is not only able to claim power through combat, but his voice is also loud enough that the entire jungle flees before him. This moment suggests that Tarzan’s upbringing with the apes has been beneficial, allowing him to develop the skills that his family members ironically lack despite belonging to a family with a legacy of leadership.
At other points, Burroughs juxtaposes Tarzan’s behavior with the behavior of the reader, invoking the second-person pronoun “you” to call attention to the ways in which contemporary Americans have been raised in an environment unlike Tarzan’s. For example, when Professor Porter and Mr. Philander get lost in the jungle, Tarzan does not understand that they cannot find a way to return. Burroughs depicts this by comparing the jungle to the streets of an American town: “Tarzan wondered why the men had gone into the jungle, nor did it ever occur to him that one could become lost in that maze of undergrowth which to him was as simple as is the main street of your own home town to you” (74). By relating Tarzan’s world to the reader’s own lived experience, Burroughs demonstrates how being raised in a different environment has given Tarzan different abilities, but he hints that his abilities are not entirely unlike the rest of human experience. By comparing the jungle to the streets of a town, the author makes Tarzan more relatable, thus closing the divide between nature and nurture.
On two notable occasions, Tarzan’s nurture nearly causes him to violate a serious social rule, but in further examples of his bias toward scientific racism, Burroughs describes how Tarzan’s white European nature always intervenes in these moments to prevent him from acting in a way that readers might find to be unacceptable. The first of these incidents occurs when Tarzan is tempted to eat the flesh of an African man, Kulonga, but instinctively finds the thought repulsive. The second occasion in which Tarzan’s nature overcomes his ape-like nurture is when Tarzan comes close to sexually violating Jane Porter. While his romantic attraction to her has led him to act like an ape and abduct her into the jungle, he rethinks his actions as he travels and decides instead “to please the woman he loved, and to appear well in her eyes” (115). While Tarzan does not understand the rules of sexual propriety, Burroughs implies that the character’s European ancestry causes him to desire Jane’s happiness over his own satisfaction, and therefore he does not wish to do anything to her that she does not want. In these moments, Burroughs explores the limitations of Tarzan’s “primitive” upbringing. While it has imbued him with incredible strength, skill, and masculine power, it must be tempered by his genteel heritage, or else Tarzan might become a morally repugnant character to the readers.
Prehistoric Humanity and Evolution
In Tarzan of the Apes, Burroughs uses the entire continent of Africa to represent the “primitive” condition of humanity, telling an allegorical story of human evolution through the narrative of Tarzan’s growing ability to reason, use tools, and eventually join modern society. While 19th-century Africa was populated by numerous cultures who had developed technology, culture, and advanced social structures, Burroughs depicts it as though it has remained unchanged since the evolution of mankind. When the Claytons are first marooned on the beach, John reminds Alice that “hundreds of thousands of years ago our ancestors of the dim and distant past faced the same problems which we must face […] That we are here today evidences their victory” (11). Burroughs rhetorically affiliates the African forest of a hundred thousand years ago with the African forest he faces in 1888, and he plans to act as though nothing has changed on the continent during that period.
The notion of Africa as being tied to human ancestry is furthered by Burroughs’s descriptions of the anthropoid apes. While the evolutionary science of the time had revealed that humans and apes shared common ancestors, Burroughs hints that the apes who adopt Tarzan might be a missing link between other apes and humans. Unlike chimpanzees or bonobos, the apes who raise Tarzan use a limited form of language and assign one another names. Burroughs also draws upon the pseudoscience of phrenology to explain why Kala is a fit mother for Tarzan, for the author states, “notwithstanding her youth, she was large and powerful—a splendid, clean-limbed animal, with a round, high forehead, which denoted more intelligence than most of her kind possessed” (18). Kala’s maternal feelings are also associated with her large forehead, suggesting that this is why she is more emotionally advanced than other apes in the group. These anthropoid apes thus represent the stage between ape and human, and Tarzan comes to represent how humans eventually evolve beyond them.
Tarzan’s coming-of-age is linked to human evolution, with the advancements and discoveries that he makes as a child paralleling the process of humans developing greater cognitive capacity and making technological advancements in early prehistory. This notion is explored through the portrayal of Tarzan’s education in his father’s cabin. Burroughs describes the image of Tarzan learning to read: “Tarzan of the apes, little primitive man, presented a picture filled, at once, with pathos and with promise—an allegorical figure of the primordial groping through the black night of ignorance toward the light of learning” (31). This language draws an explicit allegorical connection between Tarzan’s individual education and the progress of humanity over the course of centuries. Likewise, Tarzan’s sexual awakening when he becomes an adult man is the motivation for his journey to Europe and America. The process of maturity is directly associated with his advances in civility and his education into modern culture.
As Burroughs traces Tarzan’s evolution from “primitive” to modern human, he suggests that reason is the force behind human evolution. Reason separates Tarzan from the animals, allowing him to best them in combat despite his comparatively small size. However, Burroughs also hints of the problems caused by an overreliance on reason, indicating that modern society has the capacity to degenerate as well as to improve over time. When Tarzan tracks Terkoz through the jungle, he relies on his superior senses, as a modern man would not. The narration points out that “ Man’s survival does not hinge so greatly upon the perfection of his senses. His power to reason has relieved them of many of their duties, and so they have, to some extent, atrophied” (105). Burroughs warns that relying too much on reason and technology can result in man’s natural senses growing dull from disuse. Tarzan makes a similar observation to D’Arnot when he asks if other European men are as weak and helpless as those he has met. D’Arnot responds with amusement, stating, “You will think more highly of your genus when you have seen its armies and navies, its great cities, and its mighty engineering works. Then you will realize that it is mind, and not muscle, that makes the human animal greater than the mighty beasts of your jungle” (145). D’Arnot argues that human power has shifted entirely from muscular power to mental power, and that the technologies that humans have collectively created can exponentially outstrip the power Tarzan acquires from his simple tools and tricks. While D’Arnot appears vindicated in this moment, Burroughs creates an unsettling ambiguity through Tarzan’s question. It remains unsettled whether or not humanity has improved by shifting its focus entirely to reason and neglecting physical development.
Hybrid Identity and Belonging
Hybrid identity makes Tarzan into a capable and heroic figure, and yet it also causes him to feel lonely, isolated, and confused about his place in the world. Being raised by apes, Tarzan exhibits many ape-like behaviors. However, he finds the company of the apes unsatisfying as he ages because of their limited intelligence. When he seeks out human companionship, he is initially disappointed as well, determining other humans to be equally cruel and uncivilized. As he watches the nearby village torturing and eating another person, he perceives that “these people were more wicked than his own apes, and as savage and cruel as Sabor, herself. Tarzan began to hold his own kind in low esteem” (54). In yet another example of Burroughs’s inherent biases and prejudices, it is only when Tarzan meets honorable members of white society that he finds a sense of belonging, yet even this group rejects him because of his intrinsically hybrid identity.
Tarzan’s moniker “Tarzan of the Apes” also hints at his sense of hybrid identity. He does not call himself an ape, yet he does go by the title “of the apes,” hinting that being raised in an ape group has permanently altered his own identity. The language of the text explores how Tarzan has qualities of both a human and an ape, despite being genetically human. This combination of traits is not a choice, but rather instinct, implying that Tarzan can never fully leave behind his ape-like qualities. For example, when Tarzan debates following Jane to America, he asks himself, “What are you, Tarzan? […] an ape or a man?” (134). Tarzan does not understand his own hybrid identity, resulting in confusion and sadness. While he eventually decides to embrace his human side and follow D’Arnot, he still experiences lingering doubts about his own humanity.
The debate over Tarzan’s hybrid identity becomes linked to the question of his true parentage. While Tarzan believes that his literal mother was the ape, Kala, and assumes that he is a cross between an ape and a human, D’Arnot dismisses the possibility entirely. While Tarzan remains convinced that he cannot be John Clayton’s son due to the presence of an infant body in the cabin crib, D’Arnot uses modern science to seek out proof of Tarzan’s humanity. When he takes Tarzan to be fingerprinted, the police officer tells Tarzan that fingerprints cannot distinguish between races, but they can indicate species. He claims that the fingerprint’s of an ape “would be far simpler than those of the higher organism,” prompting Tarzan to ask, “But a cross between an ape and a man might show the characteristics of either progenitor?” (154). This interaction shows that Tarzan continues to doubt his pure humanity, still assuming that Kala must have given birth to him. However, the fingerprints eventually reveal that Tarzan is fully human and is John Clayton’s real son, while Tarzan learns from Professor Porter that the infant skeleton was of an anthropoid ape, not a human baby. Yet the scientific confirmation of Tarzan’s humanity does not resolve his crisis of identity. In the final sentence of the story, Tarzan decides to ensure Jane Porter’s future happiness by renouncing his claim to human parentage so that he will not strip William Cecil Clayton of the title of Lord Greystroke. When Clayton asks how Tarzan came to live in the jungle, Tarzan withholds the truth, saying, “My mother was an Ape, and of course she couldn’t tell me much about it. I never knew who my father was” (170). Through this interaction, Burroughs portrays the pain caused by Tarzan’s hybridity. Despite scientific confirmation of his species, Tarzan lacks a true connection to his human heritage while he remains unable to marry Jane. Because of his romantic rejection, he remains isolated from his own kind and therefore embraces his identity as part ape once again.
