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.
Chapters 23-28Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 23 Summary
D’Arnot awakens in a shelter made of tree branches and ferns in the forest. He is weak from the beating. Eventually, he sees a tanned, muscular white man squatting nearby and calls out. D’Arnot tries to speak French, then English, then any other language he knows a few words of, but Tarzan does not understand any of them. He brings D’Arnot a hollow gourd filled with water to drink. Tarzan also brings a piece of bark and writes on it in English that he is Tarzan of the Apes. D’Arnot tries to reply in English, but Tarzan does not respond. D’Arnot wonders if the man is deaf or non-speaking and instead writes his response, identifying himself as Paul D’Arnot and asking why he does not understand spoken English. Tarzan explains in writing that he only knows the languages of animals and has only ever spoken to one human, Jane Porter, via signs. He writes that Jane Porter is back with her people and that he will return D’Arnot to his people once the Frenchman recovers from his wounds.
D’Arnot gets a fever and believes that he will soon die. He asks if Tarzan will bring someone to the jungle to help, but Tarzan refuses because the great apes might kill D’Arnot if he is left alone. Tarzan asks D’Arnot to teach him to speak in exchange for caring for him. D’Arnot teaches Tarzan to speak French as he recovers from his fever, and they eventually travel back to the beach. When they arrive at the cabin, they find the ship gone, but the old cabin is full of supplies and comforts. Tarzan leaves, upset that the humans are gone and he must live alone in the jungle again. He wonders if he is a man or an ape at heart. In the cabin, D’Arnot finds that messages have been left for Tarzan. He reads the first message from William Cecil Clayton, who explains that the items left behind are meant to thank Tarzan for saving their lives. D’Arnot hears a sound outside the cabin and sees the latch on the door moving. Frightened, he points the gun outside and fires.
Chapter 24 Summary
Before D’Arnot’s recovery, the crew of the French ship debates whether to search for D’Arnot or to leave. Jane is adamant that Tarzan would have rescued D’Arnot, but Clayton and the French officers are doubtful. Professor Porter and Mr. Philander agree that Tarzan’s disappearance might indicate that he was an ally of the African village, but Jane refuses to believe it. She argues that Tarzan is a white man of superior abilities and is stronger than any average person, a fact that has allowed him to survive alone in the forest. She describes his muscles and the agility that she witnessed when he rescued her. The French officers admit that they fear the jungle. Professor Porter goes to seek out the location of the buried treasure, but they cannot find it where the surviving sailors of the Arrow claim it was. They speculate that Indigenous people in Africa must have taken it. A week later, the French ship leaves. Jane leaves a message for the mysterious forest man in the cabin along with supplies. She pledges her love for him and admits that if he had returned in time, she would have gone into the jungle with him forever.
Chapter 25 Summary
The narrative returns to D’Arnot in the cabin. He fires the gun, only to discover that he has accidentally shot Tarzan. However, Tarzan quickly recovers, for the bullet has only grazed. He laughs off the wound since he has suffered more serious injuries from Bolgani, Kerchak, and Terkoz. Tarzan reads Jane’s note—addressed to Tarzan—which requests that the mysterious white “giant” with the locket should come and find her in America, in the city of Baltimore. She declares that she does not love Tarzan and that her heart belongs to another, but Tarzan realizes that she does not know that he is Tarzan because she believes him to be illiterate. He is upset at the idea of her not loving him back and is confused by her misunderstanding. Tarzan tells D’Arnot that he intends to travel to America. They leave together and venture north up the coast for a month. During this period, D’Arnot teaches Tarzan “civilized” manners. After talking to D’Arnot about the treasure, Tarzan realizes that he is the one who reburied it and that he will need to go back for it in order to get the money to travel across the ocean. D’Arnot refuses, saying that it will be easier to go back for the treasure once they reach “civilization.” Tarzan is skeptical, claiming that other men are very weak and could not survive in the jungle, but D’Arnot promises that mankind’s real strength lies in reason and teamwork.
Tarzan reveals that he has learned this from his own life with the apes, and D’Arnot is surprised when Tarzan claims to remember his mother. Tarzan says that his mother was the ape Kala, but D’Arnot does not believe it. After reading the French diary of John Clayton, D’Arnot surmises that Tarzan was the baby and thus is the true Lord Greystroke. He notices that the baby left fingerprints in ink on one of the diary pages. Tarzan contradicts D’Arnot’s interpretation, recounting that he found the skeleton of an infant in the cabin and therefore could not be the Claytons’ child. Eventually, D’Arnot and Tarzan reach a town, and Tarzan is prepared to take hostile action against the Black inhabitants. However, D’Arnot persuades him to be peaceful, explaining that in “civilization,” people do not kill one another unless they are being attacked. The villagers take D’Arnot and Tarzan to a white French missionary who welcomes them into the town.
Chapter 26 Summary
Tarzan and D’Arnot reach a town on the river, and Tarzan continues to practice acting like a gentleman. As they wait for D’Arnot’s bankers to send him some money, Tarzan becomes a local celebrity. He defends a group of Europeans drinking on the veranda of a hotel from an inebriated Black man. While at dinner with some other white men, Tarzan reveals his familiarity with the jungle. The other men are big game hunters and discuss the nature of lions, but Tarzan points out that all lions have a different temperament, in the same way that people do. He bets the other hunters that he can kill a lion with only a knife and a rope and then he leaves for the jungle at night. Once he leaves the town, Tarzan feels free again. He wishes to return to the forest, but his memory of Jane forces him to persist in his quest. The other hunters wait for Tarzan and worry that they have sent him to his death. Just then, Tarzan returns with a dead lion and wins 10 thousand francs as a reward. This makes Tarzan realize the importance of money. They charter a ship and return to claim the treasure from the Dum-Dum amphitheater, then sail to Paris on a French steamer.
In Paris, D’Arnot has Tarzan taken to the French police department and gets his fingerprints taken. The French police explain that each person has a unique fingerprint pattern that never changes. While one cannot tell a person’s race from their prints, Tarzan learns that it is possible to discern species. D’Arnot reveals that he wants Tarzan’s prints compared to the baby of Lord Greystroke, even though Tarzan thinks that this is unlikely to be his true origin.
Chapter 27 Summary
In America, Robert Canler is forcing Professor Porter to allow him to marry Jane since they have been unable to pay off their debts to him without the treasure. Jane is unhappy about this and hates Robert Canler. They are forced to sell their home in Baltimore and move to a property that Jane’s mother left her in Wisconsin. There, William Cecil Clayton arrives to visit Jane and offers to marry her, but Jane explains that since she loves someone else, she would prefer to marry Canler rather than abuse Clayton’s feelings for her. Canler comes to Wisconsin to marry her on the day that a forest fire begins in the nearby woods. Jane goes out for a walk, but the forest fire draws dangerously close to their house. A car pulls up, and a giant man with dark hair leaps out to wake up the family and warn them about the fire. When they tell him where Jane went, he rushes out to save her. Jane is running from the fire when a figure swings down from the trees and bears her away. She thinks that she must be hallucinating her forest man, but Tarzan speaks and reveals that he is the person who came out of the jungle to find the mate who ran from him. Tarzan explains who he is and that he did not speak language, but could read and write. Tarzan asks why Jane is going to marry Canler, whom she does not love, and she tells him that it is the only way to pay off her father’s debts. Tarzan offers to fight Canler for her sake, but Jane reminds him that this is not the jungle. Tarzan then asks if she would marry him if she could.
Jane debates with herself what she wants. While she loves Tarzan, she is afraid of his “savagery” and does not think he could ever fit into the society she knows. She tells him not to ask if she loves him but claims that they would be happier apart because they come from different environments. Tarzan is sad that Jane cannot be happy with an ape. The car arrives, and the others come to rescue them.
Chapter 28 Summary
Jane and Tarzan return to the house, and Tarzan reveals his identity to the others. Canler and a reverend come to perform the wedding, but Tarzan grabs Canler by the throat, his scar turning red with anger. Jane fears that he will kill Canler but manages to convince Tarzan to release him. Tarzan then tells Professor Porter that he has found the treasure and will return the money to him to settle the professor’s debt. Tarzan has brought a letter of credit to give him for $241,000. Meanwhile, the fire continues to spread north, and everyone prepares to leave the house. Tarzan asks Mr. Philander and Professor Porter about the infant skeleton in the crib, and they reveal that it was not human, but the bones of an anthropoid ape. As they drive off in the car, Jane debates if she could love Tarzan when she also fears him. She desires the “forest man” more than the “civilized Frenchman,” but she does not know if she could give up her own society and culture. Therefore, she thinks it would be better to marry Clayton. She decides that her attraction to Tarzan was only her “primitive” nature, and it will never bother her again as long as she avoids touching him.
They arrive at the train station, and Tarzan catches Jane alone in the waiting room. He asks what they should do since they love each other, leaving the decision to her. Jane decides that she cannot break her promise to William Cecil Clayton and that they should never see each other again after this. Tarzan thinks back to the happy moment they shared together in the jungle. A telegram arrives at the station from D’Arnot, confirming that Tarzan’s fingerprints match that of the infant’s fingerprints on John’s journal, making Tarzan the true Lord Greystroke. However, Tarzan chooses not to reveal this fact, allowing William Cecil Clayton to have his title and to have Jane. When Clayton asks how Tarzan got to the jungle in the first place, Tarzan claims that his mother was one of the apes.
Chapters 23-28 Analysis
In the final chapters of Tarzan of the Apes, Tarzan finally undergoes a “civilizing” education in the ways of modern European society. Through his friendship with the French officer Lieutenant D’Arnot, Tarzan learns to speak a human language and then to behave in a manner befitting an aristocrat. However, Tarzan clearly chafes against some of these civilized rules and struggles to understand the concepts that rule the modern human world. Through this transformation, Burroughs implicitly critiques many of the social standards by portraying them as contrary to nature and to instinctive human qualities. The ending of the story suggests that these social rules are ultimately responsible for the separation of Tarzan and Jane, who love one another but cannot imagine a world in which they could both be happy. Thus, this section implicitly highlights the issues that separate Prehistoric Humanity and Evolution.
In a fresh perspective upon Hybrid Identity and Belonging, Burroughs details Tarzan’s quest to learn “civilized” behavior and find Jane again in America. He learns to speak French from D’Arnot, and then D’Arnot teaches him about geography and the economy when he explains how they will need to charter a ship to reach America. Tarzan is initially baffled by the concept of money, thinking that he can rely on his physical strength to swim or sail across the sea. He asks D’Arnot what money is, and the narrator adds that “it took a long time to make him understand even imperfectly” (143). Through this exchange, Burroughs takes the opportunity to craft a pointed social commentary that pokes fun at the idea of money as a system of value. It also establishes an ironic sense of paradox, for although Tarzan is far more capable than many rich men, he still lacks the social power than money can indirectly create.
Another critique of social conventions occurs when Tarzan struggles to understand table manners. As the two characters travel, the narrative recounts that “D’Arnot taught [Tarzan] many of the refinements of civilization—even to the use of knife and fork; but sometimes Tarzan would drop them in disgust and grasp his food in his strong brown hands, tearing it with his molars like a wild beast” (144). Tarzan’s preference for uncooked meat has previously been a sign of his perceived lack of civility, although Burroughs hints that the modern squeamishness about raw food is irrational and contrary to how humans evolved to eat in the wild. Finally, when Tarzan meets a group of big game hunters and bets that he can kill a lion, he finds himself briefly freed from the rules of civility. He is initially happy about this, thinking, “this was life! Ah, how he loved it! Civilization held nothing like this in its narrow and circumscribed sphere, hemmed in by restrictions and conventionalities. Even clothes were a hindrance and a nuisance. At last he was free. He had not realized what a prisoner he had been” (151). While civilized society is a prison for Tarzan, he nevertheless continues to learn its rules for Jane’s sake. Burroughs implies that he endures these arbitrary rules and manners in order to fulfill his romantic desire.
However, despite Tarzan learning the rules of white society, Jane still rejects him at the end of the story and chooses to marry William Cecil Clayton, for her reasoning functions according to depths of human socialization that Tarzan has not yet heard of, much less mastered for himself. While Jane knows that she loves Tarzan, she fears the consequences of constraining him to a lifestyle that he does not want; likewise, she is too afraid to give up her culture and way of life. The insurmountable differences in their upbringing cannot be resolved merely through Tarzan’s ability to learn good table manners. While he has learned to speak French and English, wear clothing, and eat in a “civilized” manner, his violent outburst against Robert Canler confirms to Jane that he will remain too wild in his heart. However, she paradoxically finds that she likes these “savage” and “uncivilized” qualities in him. She notices that “the immaculate young Frenchman” does not “appeal to the primal woman in her, as had the stalwart forest god” (169). Thus, Jane feels caught between her attraction to Tarzan’s “uncivilized” traits and her own fear of giving up the society she was born into. In the end, her learned behavior in American society triumphs over her natural instincts, and she decides to reject Tarzan and marry Clayton, who is a better match for her class.
