Should We Take Tarzan Seriously?
Cultural historians adore Tarzan. He emerged in 1912 as if called to battle against the New Woman, the New Negro, the new fascination with homosexuality, and all those new immigrants, and to provide a breath of fresh jungle air for a society industrializing and urbanizing at an astonishing rate. In his virile primitivism he became our answer to Prufrock, T.S. Eliot's vision of the paralyzed, self-conscious psyche of the modern civilized man.
But not so fast. As Tarzan grows and learns to read, he begins to question what it means to be human. Prufrock's "Do I dare to eat a peach?" has as its cousin, or distant ancestor, Tarzan's puzzle after killing his first African, Do I dare to eat a man? Edgar Rice Burroughs's original story, published 96 years ago this October, ends on a Wisconsin dairy farm (who knew?) as Tarzan allows his cousin to marry Jane and to keep the Greystoke name. This act preserves her honor and well-being, and in its restraint and self-sacrifice reveals his fully evolved, civilized soul. Tarzan of the Apes celebrates not his wildness, but its taming.
The complexities of Burroughs's Tarzan do not stop there, and the complexities of our Tarzan are compounded when he moves from book to film, starting in 1918, on his way to becoming, in all likelihood, the most well-known American fictional character of the 20th century. The isolationist story lines of the Tarzan films are a ruse, as the films played a large part in America's postwar cultural and economic global warfare. During and after World War II, for instance, Tarzan battled Nazis as well as Latin Americans of dubious political allegiance. My favorite moment in a Tarzan film is in Tarzan and the Valley of Gold (1966), which features an arsenal of automatic rifles, large-caliber machine guns, hand grenades, a halftrack, a tank, and a fighting helicopter. Tarzan arrives in Mexico City by jet plane, wearing a suit and carrying a briefcase, and while still in his suit crushes a Mexican foe in the Plaza de Toros with a giant Coca-Cola bottle.
It's for good reason that cultural studies mines the Tarzan narratives for their significance — Gail Bederman's Manliness & Civilization, Eric Cheyfitz's The Poetics of Imperialism, Marianna Torgovnick's Gone Primitive, and John F. Kasson's Houdini, Tarzan, and the Perfect Man, are four prominent examples. Yet that approach risks overlooking the fact that Tarzan, for Burroughs and Hollywood, was gimmick, shtick. We risk losing the fun and play without which Tarzan simply isn't Tarzan....
Read entire article at Alex Vernon in the Chronicle of Higher Ed
But not so fast. As Tarzan grows and learns to read, he begins to question what it means to be human. Prufrock's "Do I dare to eat a peach?" has as its cousin, or distant ancestor, Tarzan's puzzle after killing his first African, Do I dare to eat a man? Edgar Rice Burroughs's original story, published 96 years ago this October, ends on a Wisconsin dairy farm (who knew?) as Tarzan allows his cousin to marry Jane and to keep the Greystoke name. This act preserves her honor and well-being, and in its restraint and self-sacrifice reveals his fully evolved, civilized soul. Tarzan of the Apes celebrates not his wildness, but its taming.
The complexities of Burroughs's Tarzan do not stop there, and the complexities of our Tarzan are compounded when he moves from book to film, starting in 1918, on his way to becoming, in all likelihood, the most well-known American fictional character of the 20th century. The isolationist story lines of the Tarzan films are a ruse, as the films played a large part in America's postwar cultural and economic global warfare. During and after World War II, for instance, Tarzan battled Nazis as well as Latin Americans of dubious political allegiance. My favorite moment in a Tarzan film is in Tarzan and the Valley of Gold (1966), which features an arsenal of automatic rifles, large-caliber machine guns, hand grenades, a halftrack, a tank, and a fighting helicopter. Tarzan arrives in Mexico City by jet plane, wearing a suit and carrying a briefcase, and while still in his suit crushes a Mexican foe in the Plaza de Toros with a giant Coca-Cola bottle.
It's for good reason that cultural studies mines the Tarzan narratives for their significance — Gail Bederman's Manliness & Civilization, Eric Cheyfitz's The Poetics of Imperialism, Marianna Torgovnick's Gone Primitive, and John F. Kasson's Houdini, Tarzan, and the Perfect Man, are four prominent examples. Yet that approach risks overlooking the fact that Tarzan, for Burroughs and Hollywood, was gimmick, shtick. We risk losing the fun and play without which Tarzan simply isn't Tarzan....