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Tarzan-Lord of the Apes

​​​​​Tarzan (John Clayton II, Lord Greystoke) is raised in the African jungles by the Mangani great apes; he later experiences civilization only to largely reject it and return to the wild as a heroic adventurer. Created by, Tarzan first appeared in the novel Tarzan of the Apes (magazine publication 1912, book publication 1914), and subsequently in twenty-five sequels, several authorized books by other authors, and innumerable works in other media, both authorized and unauthorized.

Character biography[]

Childhood years[]

According to Burroughs, Tarzan was born in 1888, as John Clayton II, the son of John Clayton I (Lord Greystoke) and his wife, Alice Clayton, who were marooned on the Atlantic coast of Africa by mutineers. When Tarzan was an infant, his mother died in her sleep, and his father was killed soon after by Kerchak, chieftain of the Mangani, Great Apes of a species unknown to science. Soon after his parents' death, baby John was adopted by the ape, Kala, who lost her own baby during one of Kerchak's rampages, and named the baby Tarzan, which means "White Skin" in ape language. He lives the first few years of his life believing he is an ape before noticing and feeling ashamed for his differences from his ape companions, and living with the ire of his foster father, Tublat. This continued until one year when he finally managed to unlock the door to his parent's cabin and began to teach himself to read english using children's story books, and an illustrated dictionary.

Adult life[]

Tarzan Sons of Kilaminjaro

Adult Tarzan in 1912

In October 1909, Tarzan meets a young American woman, Jane Porter, when she, her father, and their companions, including Tarzan's own cousin, William Cecil Clayton, after a mutiny over a lost Spanish treasure maroons them in Tarzan's jungle. Tarzan protects Jane and her party from the mutineers, wildlife, and cannibals, even writing them messages which they don't know are written by Tarzan since he is utterly incapable of speech. Tarzan is captivated by Jane the moment he sets eyes on her and rushes to save her, first from a lioness, and later from the ape, Terkoz, who kidnapped her to be his wife. After Tarzan saves her, the two share a romantic night together before he takes her safely back to his parent's cabin though she still doesn't know he is their mysterious host "Tarzan of the Apes." Before Jane returns to the United States, she leaves Tarzan a letter explaining she waited seven days for him before she was forced to leave by her French rescuers and requests him to find her in America. Tarzan sets out for America with his friend, Paul D'Arnot, a French naval lieutenant who was presumed dead and left behind after he was rescued by Tarzan, who teaches him language and manners as they trek north to civilization. Tarzan parts ways with D'Arnot in Paris to go to America to find Jane, who is being pressed into a marrying Robert Canler, who Jane's father is indebted to after his expedition turned up empty handed. Jane resigns herself to her fate as Tarzan turns up with the lost Spanish treasure, which he had taken and hidden from the mutineers before he saves Jane from a wildfire. Before Tarzan can confess his love for Jane, he discovers that Jane has already accepted Cecil's proposal just as a letter from D'Arnot arrives that contains proof that Tarzan is the rightful Lord Greystoke through fingerprints that an infant Tarzan had left in his father's journal. Tarzan does not reveal that he is John Clayton II since if he did, Cecil will be penniless and Jane will live in squalor. The first book ends with him forsaking his birthright and true name, he tells Jane and her companions that his name is Tarzan and he was born from apes. In The Return of Tarzan, Tarzan is struggling to adjust to civilization with D'Arnot in Paris but becomes entangled in the nefarious plots of Nikolas Rokoff after Tarzan befriends Countess Olga de Coude, Rokoff's sister, and her older husband, Count Raoul de Coude. He makes enemies with Rokoff after he foils multiple plots to extort Olga and her husband but after Rokoff frames Tarzan as having an affair with Olga, to which Raoul challenges Tarzan to a duel. Tarzan refuses to fire at the count, even offering Raoul his own pistol when he runs out of which moves him so much that the Count gets Tarzan a job in the French Ministry of War. Tarzan is sent to Algeria to investigate Lieutenant Gernois, a suspected traitor, but is caught in a plot by Rokoff to try and kill him via arabian marauders which he eludes with the help of a slave dancer who he frees and returns to her sheik father in gratitude. Tarzan receives a letter from D'Arnot explaining that Jane has delayed her wedding to Cecil and passed on a message about how happy her time in the jungle had been, that the de Coudes wished him well and Rokoff had been removed from France, and that D'Arnot himself was setting sail with sealed orders. Tarzan is set up and captured by Gernois and Arabian Marauders and is visited by Rokoff who is barred from killing Tarzan in the Arab camp out of fear of reprisals from the French but after Rokoff leaves. Tarzan is saved by the slave dancer he freed, who came to his rescue as soon as she heard of his internment, and the two escape on foot back to the French garrison. Gernois and Rokoff's plot is exposed and the former commits suicide while the latter follows Tarzan to Algiers, who befriends Jane's friend, Hazel Strong, along the way and unknowingly passes the yacht Jane is travelling on during the night. Tarzan finds Rokoff and his associate, Paulvitch, on board and steers them away from Hazel though they finally catch him off guard and throw him overboard. Tarzan easily swims for days on end before he reaches dry land, washing ashore not far from where he grew up and decides to stay in the wilderness. Tarzan befriends the Waziri, a tribe who fled to escape Arab slavers, and helps them beat back a party of slavers and uses psychological and guerilla warfare to turn the slavers' black soldiers against them. In gratitude, the Waziri make Tarzan their new king and he sets out with his new warriors on an expedition to Opar, a lost Atlantean colony filled with gold and inhabited by ape-men. Tarzan is captured by the ape-men and their high priestess, La, and Tarzan is taken to be sacrificed but escapes when one of the priests goes mad and attacks La. Tarzan saves the priestess and she takes him to a tomb where none dare enter and allows him to escape through a well shaft and rejoin his Waziri warriors so they can take as much gold as they can carry back with them. Tarzan has the gold buried in a natural amphitheatre and happens upon a shipwrecked Jane and Cecil being attacked by a lion which he kills with one spear throw and briefly contemplates killing Cecil before he decides to go alone into the jungle. Tarzan decides not to stay with the Waziri, instead returning to his ape tribe and is accepted back but, after a fight for dominance with another male, he regrets leaving Jane in such a perilous situation and just then receives news that the ape-men have captured Jane. Tarzan races to Opar and arrives just as Jane is about to be sacrificed and fights off the ape-men and escapes with an unconscious Jane into the jungle. When Jane comes to, she believes she is dead since she thought Tarzan had died when Hazel told her that Tarzan had disappeared at sea and asks Tarzan to kiss her, which he does and tells Tarzan that she is no longer marrying Clayton after he cowered before the lion. The pair meet up with a group of Waziri and find Cecil on the verge of death after Rokoff, under the alias of Monsieur Thuran, left him for dead and Cecil tells Tarzan that he knew his true identity and understood why he gave up his inheritance. Jane learns that Tarzan is John Clayton's son before Cecil dies of exposure and the group carry his body back to Tarzan's cabin and meet the rest of the shipwrecked party, with D'Arnot and his ship already there to rescue them. After a brief shootout, Rokoff's crimes are exposed and he is taken into custody by D'Arnot as Jane tearfully reunites with her friends and family. Jane introduces Tarzan as John Clayton, Lord Greystoke, and he and Jane agree to be married at his cabin with Hazel and Cecil's friend, Lord Tennington being married as well, with Jane's father, who was ordained in his youth, acting as the officiator. Tarzan and Jane move to England and have have a son, Jack, who takes the ape name Korak ("the Killer") though Tarzan is contemptuous of what he sees as the hypocrisy of civilization, and he and Jane eventually return to Africa, making their home on an extensive estate that becomes a base for Tarzan's later adventures.

Characterization[]

Burroughs created an elegant version of the wild man figure largely unalloyed with character flaws or faults. Tarzan is described as being tall, athletic, handsome, and tanned, with grey eyes and long black hair. He wears no clothes, except for a loincloth tied around his waist. Tarzan is often intelligent, quick-thinking, loyal, courageous, and offers friendship, kindness, compassion, and guidance to those he meets. He is frequently presented as behaving ethically in most situations, except when seeking vengeance under the motivation of grief, as when his ape mother Kala is killed in Tarzan of the Apes, or when he believes Jane has been murdered in Tarzan the Untamed. He is deeply in love with his wife and totally devoted to her; in numerous situations where other women express their attraction to him, Tarzan politely declines their attentions. When presented with a situation where a weaker individual or party is being preyed upon by a stronger foe, Tarzan invariably takes the side of the weaker party. In dealing with other men, Tarzan is firm, but whenever he is with male friends, he is reserved but very friendly and easygoing. As a born leader, he can inspire unyielding loyalty towards him.

In keeping with these characteristics, Tarzan's philosophy embraces an extreme form of "return to nature". Although he is able to pass within society as a civilized individual, he prefers to "strip off the thin veneer of civilization", as Burroughs often puts it.[6] His preferred outfit is a knife and a loincloth of animal hide and he prefers going barefoot, his preferred abode is any convenient tree branch when he desires to sleep, and his favored food is raw meat, killed by himself; even better if he is able to bury it a week so that putrefaction has had a chance to tenderize it.

Tarzan's primitivist philosophy was absorbed by countless fans, amongst whom was Jane Goodall, who describes the Tarzan series as having a major influence on her childhood. She states that she felt she would be a much better spouse for Tarzan than his fictional wife, Jane and that when she first began to live among and study the chimpanzees she was fulfilling her childhood dream of living among the great apes just as Tarzan did.[7]

Rudyard Kipling's Mowgli has been cited as a major influence on Edgar Rice Burroughs' creation of Tarzan. Mowgli was also an influence on a number of other "wild boy" characters.

Skills and abilities[]

Tarzan's jungle upbringing gives him abilities far beyond those of ordinary humans. Such abilities include climbing, clinging, and leaping as well as any great ape. He uses branches and hanging vines to swing at great speed, a skill acquired among the anthropoid apes. Tarzan is also proficient at using his feet like hands; early on, he learned the importance of having prehensile feet, so he needs his feet and toes to be bare all the time in order to use their dexterity.

His strength, speed, stamina, agility, reflexes, senses, flexibility, durability, endurance, and swimming are extraordinary in comparison to normal men. He has wrestled full grown bull apes and gorillas, lions, rhinos, crocodiles, hippos, pythons, leopards, hyenas, bull elephants, sharks, tigers, wolves, buffalos, panthers, man-size seahorses (once) and even dinosaurs (when he visited Pellucidar). Tarzan is a skilled tracker, he is highly capable of using his exceptional senses of hearing and smell to follow prey or avoid predators, but he kills only for food. He is also skilled thief when raiding African tribal villages or hunting parties that Tarzan has judged to be brutal and deserve no pity, taking their spears, shields, bows, knives, and most importantly, metal arrowheads. A keen sense of hearing allows him to eavesdrop on conversations between other people near him.

Extremely rational, Tarzan was literate in English before being able to speak the language when he first encounters other English-speaking people such as his love interest, Jane Porter. His literacy is self-taught after several years in his early teens by visiting the log cabin of his dead parents and looking at and correctly deducing the function of children's primer/picture books. The books were brought to Africa by his dead Father who knew his son who be of age to read before his assignment in Africa would be completed. He eventually reads every book in his dead father's portable book collection, though he is unaware of geography, world history, and his family tree due to his father's journal being written in French, and is not able to speak English until meeting human beings as he never heard English spoken aloud. Tarzan is taught manners, and to speak French and English by his friend, Lieutenant Paul D'Arnot, as they make their way back to civilization after being presumed dead and left behind by their comrades and friends.

Tarzan can learn a new language in days, ultimately speaking many languages, including that of the great apes, French, Finnish, English, Dutch, German, Swahili, many Bantu dialects, Arabic, ancient Greek, ancient Latin, Mayan, the languages of the Ant Men and of Pellucidar.

It should be noted that unlike depictions in black and white movies of the 1930s, after learning to speak a language in the novels Tarzan/John Clayton is very articulate, reserved (he prefers to listen and carefully observe before speaking) and does not speak in broken English as the classic movies depict him.

He can communicate with many species of jungle animals and has been shown to be a skilled impressionist, able to mimic the sound of a gunshot perfectly.

Literature[]

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