59 pages • 1 hour read
Edgar Rice BurroughsTarzan of the Apes
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1912A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 1-5Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 1 Summary
The narrator recalls that he first heard this story from an inebriated friend. While his friend’s tale sounded unreliable, the teller was able to produce documentary evidence confirming the story’s events, including a diary and records from the British Colonial Office. According to these records, an English nobleman referred to as John Clayton, Lord Greystroke, was appointed to investigate the actions of another European nation illegally recruiting soldiers in Congo. John Clayton is eager to take on the assignment, but he was concerned because he recently married a woman named Alice and feared exposing her to the dangers of Africa. In 1888, the Claytons sailed to Africa and chartered a ship named the Fuwalda to take them to their destination.
While they were never seen again, the narrator recounts the events that transpired on the ship. The sailors and officers of the Fuwalda are criminals and bullies, and one day aboard the vessel, the captain tries to shoot a sailor named Black Michael because the man tripped him. John Clayton intervenes, knocking the gun out of the way so that the bullet only injures the sailor’s leg. The atmosphere on the ship turns sour, and Clayton contemplates abandoning the vessel and returning on a British ship that they see passing by. However, Clayton does not want to be seen as a “coward,” so he persists with the voyage. One of the sailors warns him that the crew intends to mutiny and that Black Michael wants the Claytons out of the way in gratitude for saving his life. John debates with Alice, who recommends that they inform the captain of the mutiny, as that is the honorable thing to do. Fearing that it might endanger his wife, John nevertheless informs the captain, who laughs off his warning. That night, the Claytons find a piece of paper stuck through their cabin door, warning them not to report that the sailors are stealing the guns or else they will be killed.
Chapter 2 Summary
The crew mutinies the next morning, and Black Michael takes command of the ship after the captain dies in the fight. He prevents the crew from harming the Claytons but says that it would be too risky for them to land at a “civilized” port. Instead, he abandons the Claytons on the shore of Africa, telling them that he will inform the British government, who will send a ship to retrieve them. Black Michael leaves them some food and guns, but John doubts that he will keep his word to inform the British government about their location. The Claytons are marooned on the beach, and they hear the terrifying noises of wild animals in the forest beyond. John fears for his wife and the unborn child that she is carrying, but he remains calm. He reminds Alice that ancient humans dealt with similar conditions and were able to survive, and that they have the advantage of centuries of accumulated knowledge and scientific advancement. John builds a tree house to protect them from predators at night. Alice spots a shape in the woods that looks like a man, but larger and with a different physical appearance and stance—likely an ape. They fall asleep, hearing the sounds of wild beasts clawing at the tree and trying to climb up to eat them.
Chapter 3 Summary
The next morning, John Clayton begins constructing a cabin for himself and Alice to live in that will keep wild animals out. He makes it out of clay and wood and uses broken-down packing boxes to construct a secure door with wooden hinges and a lock. One day, while John is out working on the cabin, an anthropoid ape attacks him. He has no gun to defend himself, so he tells Alice to lock herself inside while he fights the ape with an axe. Fearing for her husband, Alice runs to get the rifle and shoots the ape. It throws itself at her and dies. Alice is knocked unconscious, and when she wakes up, she believes that she is still in England. While her mental state is forever impacted, the Claytons live happily in the cabin and their son is born. Alice dies a year after this event. John records her death in his diary, lamenting that their baby is crying from hunger without her, and then he lays his head down on the table.
Chapter 4 Summary
Meanwhile, in the forest, the group of 60-70 anthropoid apes known as the Mangani is experiencing an upheaval. Kerchak, the strongest ape and therefore the leader, is rampaging and attacking the other apes. When a female ape named Kala returns from foraging with her new baby, Kerchak lunges at her, causing her to drop the infant from her arms. The baby falls from the tree and dies, but Kala continues to carry its body. Kerchak calls the apes together to go investigate the cabin, hoping to catch the inhabitants off-guard and kill them before they can use their gun, a weapon that Kerchak thinks of as “the little black stick” (18). The apes break into the cabin, and Kerchak kills John Clayton. Kala picks up the Claytons’ baby, and her motherly instinct causes her to drop the body of her dead infant and suckle the young human at her breast instead. Kerchak investigates the gun cautiously, afraid that it will fire and hurt him. He accidentally pulls the trigger, and the apes drop the rifle and run outside. They discover that the door has locked behind them, making it impossible to investigate further. Kala takes the human baby with her, holding him carefully and protecting him from the other apes.
Chapter 5 Summary
Kala wonders why the human baby remains so much weaker than the other ape children. As the boy grows, she names him Tarzan, which means “white skin” (22) in the language of the apes. Her mate, Tublat, dislikes the new baby. Tarzan grows up feeling ashamed of his lack of hair and his human facial features, thinking of himself as a very “ugly” ape. He grows very strong for a human child and learns to swing through the tree branches. One day, Tarzan is drinking at a lake when the lioness Sabor tries to eat him. Tarzan thinks quickly and swims out into the water to escape her—something that the apes have never learned to do. After that, Tarzan begins to enjoy swimming and bathing in water. Tublat often torments Tarzan, but Tarzan learns to weave ropes and uses them to trip or catch the other apes. He discovers how to tie knots into a noose and uses this as a strangling weapon. He begins to wonder if he could use the rope to catch the lioness Sabor as well as the other apes.
Chapters 1-5 Analysis
The opening chapters of Tarzan of the Apes establish a frame narrative that allows the author to recount how a European human baby might end up being raised by apes in an African jungle. These initial chapters utilize both the Claytons’ struggle to survive after being marooned and Tarzan’s survival among the apes to establish the usefulness of fear and courage in survival situations. John Clayton’s courage is one of his greatest assets as he faces the prospect of defending his family from African wildlife, but that same boldness is also what led him into the dangerous situation in the first place. Notably, the young Tarzan develops a temperament ideal for survival by balancing caution with confidence, and thus Burroughs’s first forays into the interplay between Nature Versus Nurture are introduced.
The courage of Tarzan’s father, John, is demonstrated in many ways, some of which are more favorable than others. When the Claytons first board the Fuwalda, John immediately senses that the boat is not safe, but his desire to appear courageous leads him and his pregnant wife to venture more deeply into danger. Despite his misgivings about the captain and crew, John places too much stock in his own reputation as a courageous man to succumb to the temptation to flag down a British vessel that they pass at sea. He thinks that the crew of the other ship would believe him guilty of cowardice and laugh at him. Because of John’s desire to be perceived as courageous, the Claytons are still aboard the Fuwalda when the mutiny occurs. Throughout this event, John continues to maintain the appearance of calm despite his inward fears at the violence proceeding around him. As the crew murders the officers, John is “leaning carelessly beside the companionway puffing meditatively upon his pipe as though he had been but watching an indifferent cricket match” (7). While this posture conveys fearlessness, the narration reveals that it is merely a mask, for “Clayton […] feared for his wife’s safety at the hands of these ignorant, half-brutes” (7). These initial interactions reveal Clayton to be a man who is able to maintain a veneer of calm in the face of danger even though his inward temperament is still plagued by fear and concern for his good reputation.
When the Claytons land upon the African shore, Burroughs takes the opportunity to develop the two characters further, although they will have a fairly limited role in the novel as a whole. Alice reveals that she is terrified, but John expresses that they need to cultivate confidence in order to survive. John comforts his wife by acknowledging that he is also worried about their unborn child and telling her that they “must face whatever comes, bravely and with the utmost confidence in our ability to cope with circumstances” (10), and in this way, the author conveys the proverbial British “stiff upper lip” with which John meets adversity. While the Claytons initially succeed at managing the situation—constructing a cabin to shelter them and fending off wild animals—an ape attack leaves Alice with trauma, and she reverts to believing she is in England. When she dies, John also loses his composure and lies down in the table in despair, putting him in such a vulnerable position that Kerchak the ape is able to kill him before he can grab the gun. This sequence of events demonstrates that while the Claytons try to embrace a survival mindset, they are ultimately unable to maintain it, and ultimately, their lack of strength and wherewithal leads to their deaths.
In a sharp contrast to his parents, Tarzan grows up in an environment that imbues him with an ideal personality for surviving the jungle, thus introducing the concept of Hybrid Identity and Belonging that Burroughs will continue to explore throughout the novel. Although he has physical limitations when compared to a lion or an ape, his ability to remain calm and reasonable during an emergency saves him from being killed. For example, when Sabor the lioness attacks him at the lakeside, the narration claims that “her wild scream […] was voiced to freeze her poor victims in a paralysis of terror” (24). While fear might seem to be beneficial for survival, the text here shows that it is not, for Sabor uses fear in order to enhance her success at hunting. However, Burroughs suggests that because of Tarzan’s human rationality, he is not as affected by fear as an ape would be. Burroughs claims that Tarzan’s “life amidst the dangers of the jungle had taught him to meet emergencies with self-confidence, and his higher intelligence resulted in a quickness of mental action far beyond the powers of the apes” (24). In these early chapters, the author establishes Tarzan as an ideal survivalist because of the combination of his animal upbringing and his innate human intelligence. He has experience in dealing with emergencies calmly, and he has a brain capable of responding more quickly than an animal’s, allowing him to evade the attacks of a much stronger creature. The concept of Tarzan’s hybrid state as both human and animal continues to be developed over the course of the story, suggesting that he represents the best traits of both human and ape.
