Tarzan of the Apes

“You have but one duty, John, and that lies in the interest of vested authority. If you do not warn the captain you are as much a party to whatever follows as though you had helped to plot and carry it out with your own head and hands.”

Alice Clayton warns her husband John that he has a duty to report the planned mutiny to the captain even though it could endanger them both. This sets up the theme of courage versus survival instinct. Alice’s dialogue uses a synecdoche, a figure of speech in which a part of a thing stands in for the whole. Her reference to the plot being carried out with John’s own head and hands indicates that a mutiny requires both intelligence and physical strength—two of the traits that Burroughs will later explore as necessary for Tarzan’s survival in the jungle.

“Clayton remonstrated against the inhumanity of landing them upon an unknown shore to be left to the mercies of savage beasts, and, possibly, still more savage men.”

Clayton’s protest to the mutinous crew includes repetition to create rhythm and to emphasize the correspondence between the human and animal inhabitants of Africa. Burroughs often uses language that humanizes the apes and treats Indigenous people in Africa as “bestial” and “animalistic.” The parallels between the “savagery” of animals and the “savagery” of the nearby African community serve his larger goal of portraying any humans other than white people as “inferior” and less evolved, necessitating the colonial control of white Europeans.

“And behind them, over the edge of a low ridge, other eyes watched—close set, wicked eyes, gleaming beneath shaggy brows.”

This sentence shifts from a third-person-limited perspective to depict an image of John and Alice’s vulnerability. As they build a shelter on the dangerous beach, the narrative shifts to an omniscient point of view that foreshadows the threat of the anthropoid apes. Burroughs focuses particularly on the eye and brow shape of the ape in order to convey its threatening qualities, borrowing from the racist pseudo-science of phrenology. Phrenology is based upon the debunked idea that skull measurements can indicate personality and intellect. In phrenology, having a pronounced brow ridge was associated with aggression and “primitivism.”

“I will do my best to be a brave primeval woman, a fit mate for the primeval man.”

Alice promises John that she will try to cope with the difficult circumstances, employing a parallel sentence structure that repeats the term “primeval” to indicate that she will mirror his attitudes and characteristics. By shifting her language to use “mate” instead of “wife,” Alice shows that she is imagining them living like prehistoric humans. Rather than the structured relationships of human society, as a mate she is motivated only by her natural instincts to survive and help her kin.

“That night a little son was born in the tiny cabin beside the primeval forest, while a leopard screamed before the door, and the deep notes of a lion’s roar sounded from beyond the ridge.”

Burroughs describes Tarzan’s birth using sensory descriptions of the other noises in the jungle to create a sense of danger. The leopard and lion roaring outside while the vulnerable baby is within the cabin conveys how fragile Tarzan’s human family truly is. However, this sentence also foreshadows Tarzan’s future strength. At the moment of his birth, these large jungle predators roar, and the baby’s birth cries are blended with this fierce and powerful sound.

“For a long time no sound broke the deathlike stillness of the jungle midday save the piteous wailing of the tiny man-child.”

In the aftermath of Alice Clayton’s death, Tarzan cries out in hunger while his father can do nothing to help. Burroughs shifts the language of this sentence from normal parlance to an animal-like perspective, calling Tarzan a “man-child” rather than a baby. This stylistic choice foreshadows how Tarzan will be perceived by the anthropoid apes that will both kill his father and save his life. His identity verbally shifts from being a child of the Claytons; instead, he becomes an anomalous human infant amidst the animal life of the jungle.

“With a wild scream he was upon her, tearing a great piece from her side with his mighty teeth, and striking her viciously upon her head and shoulders with a broken tree limb until her skull was crushed to a jelly.”

This description of Kerchak the ape’s rage uses descriptive language that conveys a sense of violence and horror. Rather than imagining the jungle animals as friendly and whimsical, Burroughs clearly establishes that apes are dangerous and often cruel. Using metaphorical language that compares an ape’s brains to jelly, Burroughs creates an atmosphere of gritty realism and horror.

“Then hunger closed the gap between them, and the son of an English lord and an English lady nursed at the breast of Kala, the great ape.”

When Tarzan is first adopted by Kala, Burroughs’s rhetoric draws attention to the irony of an English aristocrat being nursed by an ape. By repeating that Tarzan’s parents are both English nobility, it becomes even more absurd that he should be drinking the milk of an ape. However, Burroughs suggests that the natural maternal instincts that Kala feels and the hunger that the infant feels are able to overcome any biological differences between them, indicating that mother-child bonds are potent enough to cross species gaps.

“The feeling of freshness and exhilaration which the cool waters had imparted to him, filled his little being with grateful surprise, and ever after he lost no opportunity to take a daily plunge in lake or stream or ocean when it was possible to do so.”

After escaping Sabor the lioness by swimming, the young Tarzan grows to enjoy the water. This minor detail hints that Tarzan will keep himself clean and hygienic despite living in the wilderness. Similarly, Burroughs later establishes that Tarzan is clean-shaven despite lacking a mirror or a razor. This plays into the racist stereotype of white Europeans being cleaner and more concerned with personal hygiene than non-white people. It also allows Tarzan to maintain a more conventionally attractive European appearance despite his environment.

“At first he tried to pick the little figures from the leaves, but he soon saw that they were not real, though he knew not what they might be, nor had he any words to describe them.”

Tarzan’s first encounter with written language and art defamiliarizes the child’s picture book by referring to its features using terms that a child raised in the jungle might use. Tarzan has no concept of pages and so thinks of the paper as “leaves.” Similarly, he recognizes the animals depicted in the illustrations, but he has no way to describe a representation of an object and so tries to pick up the pictures. This first encounter with a book suggests Tarzan’s mental state and his growing cognition as he is first exposed to a metaphysical concept.

“His brown, sweat-streaked, muscular body, glistening in the moonlight, shone supple and graceful among the uncouth, awkward, hairy brutes about him.”

During the ape’s Dum-Dum ritual, Tarzan is both a participant and a “superior.” While Tarzan dances and attacks the enemy ape to acquire meat, Burroughs describes his body as being more beautiful, elegant, and aesthetically pleasing than the bodies of the dancing apes. Using juxtaposition, this sentence indicates how Tarzan rises above his ape society even as he mimics their exact behaviors and customs.

“But that which meant freedom and the pursuit of happiness to these savage blacks meant consternation and death to many of the wild denizens of their new home.”

When an African community arrives in the jungle to escape a massacre, they are framed as a threat to the local animal ecosystem. Rather than treating their escape from colonial violence as a positive thing, Burroughs instead focuses on how they will lead to the death of Tarzan’s mother Kala the ape. By alienating African people from the landscape of their native territory, this sentence frames them as enemy interlopers who must be fought off by the heroic Tarzan, despite the fact that he is a much more foreign influence upon the ecosystem. Burroughs also evokes the American Declaration of Independence in his phrase “pursuit of happiness,” creating a sense of irony that the independence of these African people will lead to destructive behavior.

“There was much in their demeanor which he could not understand, for of superstition he was ignorant, and of fear of any kind he had but a vague conception.”

One of the reasons why Tarzan is distinct from the African village is his lack of fear and superstition. Within this fictional world created through the lens of Burroughs’s racist biases, the village’s affiliation with these “negative” traits causes them to worship Tarzan as a god and uphold his supremacy as a white man. Tarzan’s lack of fear compared to the other white European men is one of his distinguishing features. William Cecil Clayton and the French officers are frightened of the jungle, yet they still manage to act with bravery and honor. Tarzan, by contrast, does not even feel the fear because his survival instincts have made him so pragmatic that he recognizes the uselessness of paralyzing terror.

“The warriors licked their hideous lips in anticipation of the feast to come, and vied with one another in the savagery and loathsomeness of the cruel indignities with which they tortured the still conscious prisoner.”

Burroughs’s description of the African village relies on racist caricatures and cultural stereotypes in order to communicate their “inferiority” in comparison to Tarzan. On the surface, the author’s focus on negative, animalistic descriptions of the characters’ lips indicates their cannibalistic tendencies; however, this appearance was also a facial feature commonly exaggerated in minstrel performances and racist artworks of the time period. This description reflects the author’s attempts to denigrate the humanity of these African people to the point where Tarzan’s murderous campaign against them appears righteous and justified.

“Now was the quiet, fierce solitude of the primeval forest broken by new, strange cries. No longer was there safety for bird or beast. Man had come.”

The arrival and expansion of the African village in the jungle serves as a microcosm of the evolutionary timeline. By referring to the quiet of the forest as “primeval,” Burroughs suggests that the animals were somehow more ancient, living in a state close to how the world would have been before hominids evolved. The arrival of humanity changes the landscape and places a new species at the top of the hierarchy. The allegory of evolutionary time parallels Tarzan’s coming of age, as the jungle accelerates into the Anthropocene era at the same time that Tarzan becomes an adult.

“But there was that which had raised him far above his fellows of the jungle—that little spark which spells the whole vast difference between man and brute—Reason.”

Capitalizing “Reason” and using metaphorical language that compares it to a spark, this sentence emphasizes the power and importance of reason. While the other anthropoid apes possess superior strength and some capacity for language and cooperation, Tarzan’s superior reason is what raises him above them. The idea of reason as a spark suggests that it is a small trait that can lead to something larger and stronger like a fire, mirroring how Tarzan’s reason provides the inspiration for the creation of powerful tools like the rope and the full-Nelson.

“As long as they supplied him with arrows and food he would not harm them unless they looked upon him, so it was ordered by Mbonga that in addition to the food offering there should also be laid out an offering of arrows for this Munan-go-Keewati, and this was done from then on.”

The name given to Tarzan by the African village uses invented African words rather than a real language. Burroughs borrows some names from the Congo region of central Africa to create a title for Tarzan, whom the local people believe to be an angry god or forest spirit. The use of this invented title creates a tone of “exoticism” and mystery as the words are never translated.

“Before them stretched the broad Atlantic. At their backs was the Dark Continent. Close around them loomed the impenetrable blackness of the jungle.”

The descriptive language in this sentence draws a connection between Africa as a “Dark Continent” and the literal darkness of the dense jungle. The phrase “Dark Continent” was first used by European explorers to refer to Sub-Saharan Africa, referring to how unknown and unmapped it was by Europeans. While local populations had maps and knowledge of the topography, explorers such as Henry Morton Stanley were often credited with “discovering” lakes, mountains, and cities across the continent. The notion of Africa as a dark, mysterious, and undiscovered place creates a sense of danger, adventure, and challenge that white humans could overcome and dominate in the same way that previous generations explored the frontier of the American “Wild West.”

“This unseemly haste is most unbecoming to men of letters. What will our friends think of us, who may chance to be upon the street and witness our frivolous antics? Pray let us proceed with more decorum.”

Professor Porter’s elevated and formal language contrasts humorously with the situation—being chased by a lion. While it is unlikely that any members of American society will see Professor Porter and Mr. Philander running away from the lion, Porter’s concern for their reputation signifies how the rules of “civilized” cultures can sometimes be oppressive and absurdly contrary to practical reason.

“When Tarzan killed he more often smiled than scowled, and smiles are the foundation of beauty.”

This sentence uses an aphorism, a short phrase meant to convey wisdom, although in a somewhat ironic context. While smiling is usually seen as a pleasant and friendly expression, smiling while killing creates a potentially alarming contrast. Burroughs also employs alliteration, repeating the “S” sound in “smiled” and “scowled,” to create a feeling of harmony in his comparison. Tarzan’s beauty is based upon both his smiling face and his skills in violent combat, suggesting that there is aesthetic value in fighting as well as in peace.

“She would not admit that he could be dead. It was impossible to believe that that perfect body, so filled with triumphant life, could ever cease to harbor the vital spark—as soon believe that immortality were dust.”

Jane wonders why Tarzan has not returned to her, using a paradox in order to indicate the impossibility of his death. Referring to life as a “vital spark,” Jane’s thoughts metaphorically describe Tarzan’s body as being too strong to die. She compares his death to a paradoxical event—immortality becoming dust—in order to further emphasize its impossibility. The phrase “immortality were dust” uses a synecdoche and allusion from the Bible that describes death as the human body returning to the dust from which it was created.

“To Tarzan it was as though one should eulogize a butcher for his heroism in killing a cow, for Tarzan had killed so often for food and for self-preservation that the act seemed anything but remarkable to him. But he was indeed a hero in the eyes of these men—men accustomed to hunting big game.”

Burroughs uses an extended metaphor to explain why Tarzan does not view his own incredible accomplishments being as worthy of excitement. Rather than humbling Tarzan, this actually increases his acclaim, for killing a lion seems as mundane to him as a butcher killing a cow. While cows are livestock often killed for food, lions require more skill to track, capture, and kill without being harmed.

“You surprise me, Jane. I thought you had more self-control—more pride. Of course you are right. I am buying you, and I knew that you knew it, but I thought you would prefer to pretend that it was otherwise. I should have thought your self respect and your Porter pride would have shrunk from admitting, even to yourself, that you were a bought woman.”

Robert Canler admits that he knows that Jane Porter hates him, but he indicates that he sees his wealth as a way to exert power over other people. He mocks her, showing her that she has no way to resist marrying him without endangering her father due to his debts. This foreshadows Tarzan’s intervention wherein he exposes the illusory nature of financial power when compared to the physical power of Tarzan’s strength. While Tarzan also possesses the wealth to repay Professor Porter’s debts, his attempt to strangle Robert Canler reminds him that masculine dominance cannot be entirely negotiated through material wealth.