Tarzan Study Guide

Tarzan Study Guide

1.  How are women portrayed in this book?  Are there differences in the ways that Lady Alice, Jane Porter, and Esmeralda are characterized?  What does this tell us about the United States in 1914?

There are large differences between the three women focused on in the book. Lady Alice is portrayed as a very involved and respected woman. When talk about a mutiny comes about, she tells her husband her strategic thoughts, to which he replies, “Right you are, Alice.”(15) I was surprised that he listened to her and didn’t try to take control, because that didn’t seem to be true for the other women of the story. Jane Porter seems to be pushed aside, she should not be involved in the work and thinking. “…do not trouble your pretty head with such weighty and abstruse problems.” (127) Esmeralda, on the other hand, seems to be portrayed as a low life, weak. In many scenes she is found sobbing or fainting, and all of her quotes are very dramatic and in improper English. “O Gaberelle, Ah wants to die!” (181). These three very different women tell me that in 1914, whites males were the dominant race, then came white women, and blacks at the bottom.

2.  What is the nature that Burrough’s constructs like?  Remember, this is fiction (Burroughs never visited Africa) and so the “natural” world that Burroughs describes is not natural at all but the imaginative creation of his mind.  How do the animals interact?  Do you think what he describes is an accurate portrayal?  Why does he construct the natural world like this? (Does this remind you of any ideology that we have talked about?)

        Burroughs, on page 20, sets up this amazing scene, describing the nature as, “…beautiful with semi-tropical verdure, while in the distance the country rose from the ocean in hill and tableland, almost uniformly clothed by primeval forest.” Then later he talks about the savage beasts roaring in the jungle. It appears to be quiet ironic, that the land is so beautiful, but the creatures inhibiting it are so vicious. It is also a jungle that never rests, the animals are always moving and making noise and that kept Clayton and Alice awake all night (27). I thought this reflected America’s hustle and bustle well. It also mentions that anyone outside of the tribe was considered a deadly enemy (92). So unless they are fighting, the different species do not interact. This is demonstrating social Darwinism because it is survival of the fittest; that is why Tarzan is King, he is the fittest. Burroughs does a great job of making this ‘nature’ very relatable to our world. We are vicious, we never stop moving, and social Darwinism is the key to our society.

3.  What does Tarzan’s name mean in ape language?  Is this significant?

        Tarzan means “White-Skin” in ape language. (45) This is significant because his name separates him from the tribe immediately, pointing out how different he is. He was also named based on physical appearance which shows the shallow mindedness of ‘apes’.

4.  Why is Tarzan so smart and so strong?  What reasons does Burroughs give for these almost supernatural mental and physical traits?

The reason of man (109) gives Tarzan his intellectual ability. His mental superiority comes from his natural and untaught ability to reason. Tarzan actually becomes bored with his tribe, “they had not kept pace with him, nor could they understand aught of the many strange and wonderful dreams that passed through the active brain of their human king.” (112) The really important phrase in that quote is active mind. He was just wired differently than the apes, and readers are led to believe humans are wired more intelligently than apes. Tarzan’s strength “is merely a matter of development.” (187) Since he was not an ape, he had to make up for his inability and all that practice to be an ape allowed him to have the strength of one.

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