As a child, I can recall my family’s watching the old black-and-white movies of Tarzan of Africa. I remember vaguely perceiving Tarzan a hero and a likeable character. After reading a 2010 reprint of the original 1914 novel, my perception of Tarzan has changed. Tarzan is an anti-hero; in my opinion, he is the villain.
Tarzan of the Apes, written by Edgar Rice Burroughs, was originally published as a novel in 1914. However, Tarzan of the Apes was first published in a magazine in 1912. I read a 2010 reprint of the novel and listened to the book on CD as I followed along in the book.
In the book on CD, some words, phrases, or sentences were either omitted or replaced. Many of the omitted words was to eliminate redundancies such as having to use Jane’s last name over and over again. The book used “Jane Porter” repeatedly, but the book on CD referred to her as “Jane.” Many of the replaced or omitted words were the racist sections in reference to blacks. The book on CD softens the blow against blacks, but if you want to see the book and its philosophy for what it really is, I recommend your reading the book as you listen to the book on CD. The book on CD does not identically match the reprint of the 1914 novel, Tarzan of the Apes.
We all know from the movies that Tarzan was the son of an English aristocrat, was raised by apes, and is somehow, king of the African jungle. What many of us didn’t know was that the novel, Tarzan of the Apes, promoted or justified white supremacy over blacks and the murders of blacks by noose. Tarzan found his parents’ cabin on a beach and their dead bodies inside. He found a knife, which he used to kill animals, but he instinctively created nooses as his weapon of choice when murdering native blacks from a local village. The villagers never saw who or what was lowering nooses from the tree tops and carrying black men up by the necks. “Naturally,” the native blacks assumed it was a god or forest spirit, killing their people, stealing poison-tipped arrows from their village, and committing acts of vandalism. Therefore, they would put out food for Tarzan to eat in an effort to appease this invisible tree god and stop it from murdering their people.
The first half of the book is dedicated to Tarzan’s development among the apes. First, Tarzan lagged behind other apes in development, but then, Tarzan’s innate superiority allowed him to surpass his counterparts in skill and intelligence. In other words, whites are so innately superior, that if raised among wild animals, they would outperform them, rule them, and dominate the wild animals, who taught him survival skills.
The second half of the book is dedicated to Tarzan’s encounters with the first whites he has ever seen. It is in these encounters with whites like himself, we learn more about his natural desire to kill blacks just because they are black and his tolerance for blacks only when they are controlled and socialized by whites. Tarzan had no instinctual desire to murder whites, whom he clearly understood as being like himself.
From beginning to end, Tarzan develops into a more superior ape than the apes, a natural-born god to the local native blacks, and a gentleman towards white women by nature due to both his racial and aristocratic blood. In other words, Tarzan’s “civilized” biology naturally overcomes his “savage” nurture by apes. In relation to blacks, Tarzan’s biology entitled him to terrorize blacks, murder blacks, steal from blacks, and become worshipped as a god by blacks. In other words, Burroughs used the symbolism of Tarzan to communicate the white race’s biological right to rule and dominate blacks. Burroughs introduced a black servant of Jane to demonstrate that blacks would be no more than apes without being civilized by whites as this servant was. Despite being a violent wild person of the jungle, Tarzan is portrayed as innately civilized and innately moral. For example, Burroughs made the blacks in the local village cannibals, but when Tarzan had the opportunity to eat human flesh in the same way he had eaten ape flesh, he was “naturally” repulsed by the thought of doing so. Burroughs’ Tarzan of the Apes, elevates apes with human-like qualities such as culture, custom, language, and a mother’s love, whereas he lowered blacks beneath the status of apes with cannibalism. The words, imagery, and comparisons used to describe Tarzan when compared to apes and native African blacks are written to make readers perceive this murderous, evil villain as a hero. One would have to be a racist already not to recognize the philosophies of white supremacy and black inferiority communicated in this novel.
Tarzan of the Apes is a racist book, but its plot is extremely exciting. I am recommending people to read the original inspiration for the Tarzan movies, Tarzan of the Apes, by Edgar Rice Burroughs. It does not mean I cannot recommend this incredibly imaginative novel to others just because I don’t like Tarzan’s character and Burroughs’ racist philosophies. The novel features an evil protagonist with an interesting plot. Burroughs produced a fiction that answers the question as to what if a person was raised in the wild by animals according to one man’s imagination. Although, I don’t think Burroughs’ imagination in Tarzan of the Apes holds up to any scientific data about feral children, but it is still imaginative and plot-driven. I consider this book to be plot-driven, because Tarzan’s evil character is not enough to make me like him or care, but the plot makes me curious as to what will happen next. Perhaps, someone will write a version of Tarzan where the native blacks finally wrap a noose around Tarzan’s neck and kill him for being the devil that he is.
This book can be used by students in anthropology, biology, zoology, psychology, sociology, political science, geography, literature, and history. One can write a paper on how accurate or inaccurate was Burroughs’ description of ape behaviors or of native African cultures compared with what is known scientifically. One can use this book along with others to construct an intellectual history of racial philosophy. One can compare and contrast the philosophy, psychological development, and events described in Tarzan of the Apes with scientific research on feral children. One can compare and contrast the portrayal of white women and black women in this novel. One can investigate whether a full-grown man can swing from tree to tree in Equatorial Africa. One can write a paper, describing how the known history of European imperialism parallels Tarzan’s fictitious conquest over apes, other animals, and native African blacks. There are many interesting academic topics one can pull out of this one book. I highly recommend it for college students. If you are not in college and, like myself, watched the old black-and-white movies of Tarzan as a child, I still encourage you to read Tarzan of the Apes out of curiosity and decide for yourselves whether he is a hero or villain.
Burroughs’ was a talented author. The plot-driven book, Tarzan of the Apes, will make you curious enough to continue reading towards the end. By the way, if you have watched the black-and-white movies of Tarzan, the ending in the book, Tarzan of the Apes, is not what you might expect. Just because this novel is racist, it does not mean that we should not read it. We should read it, study it, and learn from it. Tarzan of the Apes is an example of what not to be, how not to think, and how not to behave.
Reference
Burroughs, Edgar Rice. Tarzan of the Apes. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010.
———————————- Tarzan of the Apes. Old Saybrook: Tantar Audio, 2008. Book on CD.
Links
Tarzan of the Apes at Amazon.com
Tarzan of the Apes Book on CD at Amazon.com
Tarzan of the Apes at Barnes & Noble
The Legend of Tarzan Trailer on YouTube
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