tarzan of the apes by edgar rice burroughs

As a host he is likewise generous and gracious. With male friends he is reserved but deeply loyal and generous. In dealing with other men Tarzan is firm and forceful.

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. 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 but firmly declines their attentions. He is presented as behaving ethically, at least by Burroughs’ definitions, 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 intelligent and learns new languages easily. Emotionally, he is courageous, loyal and steady. He is described as being Caucasian, extremely athletic, tall, handsome, and tanned, with grey eyes and black hair. In Tarzan, Burroughs created an extreme example of a hero figure largely unalloyed with character flaws or faults. Tarzan is contemptuous of the hypocrisy of civilization, and he and Jane return to Africa, making their home on an extensive estate that becomes a base for Tarzan’s later adventures. They have one son, Jack, who takes the ape name Korak (“the Killer”). In later books, Tarzan and Jane marry and he lives with her for a time in England. When she returns to America, he leaves the jungle in search of her, his one true love. In fact, Burroughs, as narrator of Tarzan of the Apes, describes both Clayton and Greystoke as fictitious names – implying that, within the fictional world that Tarzan inhabits, he may have a different real name.Īs a young adult, Tarzan meets a young American woman, Jane Porter, who along with her father and others of their party is marooned at exactly the same spot on the African coast where Tarzan’s parents were twenty years earlier. Tarzan (White-skin) is his ape name his English name is John Clayton, Lord Greystoke (the formal title is Viscount Greystoke according to Burroughs in Tarzan, Lord of the Jungle Earl of Greystoke in later, non-canonical sources, notably the 1984 movie Greystoke). Tarzan’s tribe of apes is known as the Mangani, Great Apes of a species unknown to science. When Tarzan was a year old, his mother died of natural causes, and his father was killed by Kerchak, leader of the ape tribe into which Tarzan was adopted. Tarzan is the son of a British Lord and Lady who were marooned on the West coast of Africa by mutineers.

Tarzan of the apes by edgar rice burroughs