I found them utterly believable as a type of proto-human. ….From this primitive function has arisen, unquestionably, all the forms and ceremonials of modern church and state, for through all the countless ages, back beyond the last, uttermost ramparts of a dawning humanity our fierce, hairy forebears danced out the rites of the Dum-Dum to the sound of their earthen drums, beneath the bright light of a tropical moon in the depth of a mighty jungle which stands unchanged today as it stood on that long forgotten night in the dim, unthinkable vistas of the long dead past when our first shaggy ancestor swung from a swaying bough and dropped lightly upon the soft turf of the first meeting place.īurroughs’ depiction of the ape society is great – he humanises the apes just enough so that we see them as individuals and like or dislike them accordingly, but he ensures that even the “good” ones never stop being wild, brutal beasts. …the fierce, mad, intoxicating revel of the Dum-Dum. Then there’s the tribe that adopt Tarzan, who are a kind of link between ape and man, with the beginnings of a verbal language and some basic forms of ritual, such as… He shows a kind of pyramid of evolution starting with real apes that we would recognise as such. Burroughs’ ideas may seem pretty shocking to us now, but they were fairly mainstream at the time. (Both jolly good attributes in a man, I admit – I wonder if Rafa fights apes…)Įvolution was still a relatively new idea when Burroughs was writing this, and many authors were exploring the subject in different ways. He so truly believes that white Anglo-Saxons are the pinnacle of evolution and that women will forgive any little character flaws (like cannibalism, for example) so long as a man has rippling biceps and the ability to fight apes single-handed. It’s a sort of innocent charm – I feel sure he’d be amazed and appalled if he thought he’d offended anyone. There’s something about the way Burroughs tells stories that makes them great fun despite all the many ways he transgresses modern sensibilities. And then more white people are marooned in the same place by another bunch of mutineers, and he sees the lovely Jane… Johnny Weissmuller played the role many times…īasically, this is simply a romping adventure story that is as enjoyable now as when it took the reading public’s imagination by storm back in 1912, when it was first published in the pulp magazine The All-Story. However, when he discovers the hut his parents built and all their belongings including their books, he realises he is different from the other apes.
But when disaster strikes, leaving the baby all alone in the world, he is adopted by a tribe of apes and grows up learning their ways, unaware of his own heritage.
For a while they survive, long enough for Lady Alice to bear the son she was already carrying. The mutineers drop their passengers off on a wild coast, far from civilised habitation, but close to the jungle. Lord Greystoke and his young wife Lady Alice are on their way to take up a new colonial appointment in Africa when the crew of the ship they are on mutiny. The evolution of the rippling bicep… 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀
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