Segregation in Burroughs's Tarzan of the Apes

Hierarchy in society always plays some type of significance within culture -whether it be represented in a caste system of India or found simply in a school yard. We are taught in this modern time to respect and try to understand those that seem different from us, although it is difficult for many people as their ethnocentricity can stand in the way of equality. Yet when Tarzan was first written these ideas were far less accepted openly, if fact it was the popular belief (of white men, of course) that the Caucasian man was the superior figure of man. No one could rise above his intellect, his manly prowess of man, beast... and, of course, woman.

Written in the early 1900's Tarzan is in fact a representation of how Burroughs saw his hero. Tarzan was not only white, but English, by all standards the "most developed of man-kind." In another time, without the disastrous shipwreck that befouled his parents' life, Tarzan (aka Lord Greystoke) would be spouting some hoity-toity idea whilst drinking imported tea in London with his right pinky-finger pointed towards the sky. Instead Lord Greystoke swings from vines and talks to apes. What I find most interesting is not his life within the jungle itself, but how Tarzan seems to just know how to act around his human counter parts -and how he treats them in accordance to their skin color.

Jane and the others weren't the first to come across Tarzan. The first semblance of man he came across was a black community. He views them as if they are another species of animal, one which he could either kill or not kill to his own supreme leisure. Tarzan murders one of the men and after he is dead Tarzan "examined the black minutely, never had he seen any other human being ... He examined and admired the tattooing on the forehead and the breast. He marveled at the sharp filed teeth ... Then he prepared to get down to business, for Tarzan of the après was hungry, and here was meat; meat of the kill, which jungle ethics permitted him to eat" (93). This wildness is strange to Tarzan, as if he doesn't see the sharp teeth of gorillas everyday or markings on the hide of a snake. Even Tarzan seems to realize that these dark-skinned people are "savages." Tarzan even seems willing to perform cannibalism on the Africans -in fact he has no problem with it except that he worries it's against "white-man rules."

The names of the book chapters are strangely interesting when compared. When Tarzan first sees another human Burroughs named the chapter "Man and Man" yet when Tarzan meets Jane and her counter parts the chapter is titled, "His Own Kind." Ah ha! It becomes clearer now. His own kind is not man himself, but the white man. Would not Tarzan have more in common with the Black hunters than these citified, white Englishmen? The Natives are savages to him, he shows no appreciation for their hunting skills or survival skills -he simply hunts them down and shoots them with their own poisoned arrows. When his "own kind" arrives, in their strange clothes and fierce weapons, Tarzan, instead of attacking or running off, feels as if finally, finally his kind has arrived. Alas, the White Man has come! Tarzan reacts in a totally different manner. Immediately, he finds kinship with the small party and falls immediately in love with Jane Porter. Burroughs never mentioned any of the black women, unless they happened to be preparing poison, why would Tarzan not notice any of them? There were many women in the community of several hundred, yet he feels none of the lust that emanates for Jane. It's not just that she's a woman, it's that she's a white woman -a white woman with a "soft mass of golden hair which crowned around her head" (171).

Burroughs treats the segregation of white and black men in ways that were readily accepted during that time. No one would have been shocked that he was not considered to be the same as a man with another color of skin. That's simply how it was, from separate bathrooms to schools. Burroughs, though most likely unknowingly, showed the modern social status at the time simply with this novel. The Blacks were inferior to Tarzan's intellect, in no possible way could they ever have stopped him from stealing or killing the tribe members -they are simply far too superstitious to think clearly anyway. The main English characters are all fine, generic examples of the "white-race." Jane with her billowing blonde locks, Clayton's manly handsomeness, and for those who have surpassed their youth they are intellectual geniuses that strategically plan out their moves (albeit in a humorous tone). Both races are represented in Tarzan; both represent the social acceptance of society. Tarzan today can compare contemporary views to those of Burroughs -a cultural reminder of segregation within and outside of literature.

Source:
Edward Rice Burroughs. Tarzan of the Apes. Barnes and Noble Classic Series.