Some one is always taking the joy out of
life. For twenty years I proceed blissfully writing stories to keep the wolf
from my door, and to cause other people to forget for an hour or two the wolves
at their doors, and then up pops the editor of Writer's Digest and asks me for
an article on the Tarzan theme.
Frankly, there ain't no such animal; or if
there is I didn't know it.
Breathlessly, I flew to Mr. Webster,
determined to create a Tarzan theme with his assistance; but I was disappointed
in somehow not finding Tarzan in the dictionary. But I did find
"theme". Webster calls it: "A subject or topic on which a person
writes or speaks; a proposition for discussion or argument; a text."
That definition simplified my task, for
under this definition the Tarzan theme consists of one word - Tarzan.
THE REAL ESTATE BUSINESS
This is a helpful solution because it is
easy, and right now I am as busy as the w.k. one-armed paper hanger with the
hives. I have to write two novels a year in addition to other writing; I am
publishing my own books now, two a year, which entails a tremendous amount of
detail; then there are seven newspaper strips a week in addition to motion
pictures and radio. Being in the real estate business as a side-line adds to my
labors, thought not greatly for the past two years, as any realtor will tell
you, unless paying taxes comes under the head of labor.
On top of all this, I have recently
acquired by foreclosure a championship eighteen-hole golf course at Tarzana,
California, which I have partially opened to the public for tournament play.
A few days ago a good-natured columnist
commented on my activities in the New York Evening Telegram as follows:
"Edgar Rice Burroughs is marketing his
book, Jungle Girl, from his home in Tarzana, California. Mr. Burroughs is the
nation's sixth largest industry, now that steel and railroads are slowing
up."
Had he known about the golf course I think
he might have moved me up.
There is, however, one great advantage in
all these activities. I have always required a great deal of exercise, but he
amount that I must now take is considerably lessened by the fact that all these
things, especially the real estate business, make me sweat without any other
effort.
AN UNDEMANDING THEME
Getting back to the theme -- "a
proposition for discussion or argument," says Mr. Webster. The Tarzan
stories are a means for avoiding discussion or argument, so that definition is
out, and there only remains the last, "a text". As this connotes
sermonizing we shall have to hit it on the head, which leaves me nothing at all
to write about on the Tarzan theme.
Tarzan does not preach; he has no lesson to
impart, no propaganda to disseminate. Yet, perhaps unconsciously, while seeking
merely to entertain I have injected something of my own admiration for certain
fine human qualities into these stories of the ape-man.
It is difficult and even impossible for me
to take these Tarzan stories seriously, and I hope that no one else will ever
take them seriously. If they serve any important purpose, it is to take their
readers out of the realm of serious things and give them that mental relaxation
which I believe to be as necessary as the physical relaxation of sleep -- which
makes a swell opening for some dyspeptic critic.
TARZAN'S CREATION
I recall that when I wrote the first Tarzan
story twenty years ago, I was mainly interested in playing with the idea of a
contest between heredity and environment. For this purpose I selected an infant
child of a race strongly marked by hereditary characteristics of the finer and
nobler sort; and at an age at which he could not have been influenced by
association with creatures of his own kind. I threw him into an environment as
diametrically opposite that to which he had been born as I might well conceive.
As I got into the story I realized that the
logical result of this experiment must have been a creature that would have
failed to inspire the sympathy of the ordinary reader, and that for fictional
purposes I must give heredity some breaks that my judgment assured me the facts
would not have warranted. And so Tarzan grew into a creature endowed only with
the best characteristics of the human family from which he was descended, and
the best of those which mark the wild beasts that were his only associates from
infancy until he had reached man's estate.
THE BURROUGHS PHILOSOPHY
It has pleased me throughout the long
series of Tarzanian exploits to draw comparisons between the manners of men and
the manner so beasts, and seldom to the advantage of men. Perhaps I hoped to
shame men into being more like the beasts in those respects in which the beasts
excel men, and these are not few.
I wanted my readers to realize that, of all
the creatures that inhabit the earth or the waters below or the air above, man
alone takes life wantonly; he is the only creature that derives pleasure from
inflicting pain on other creatures, even his own kind. Jealously, greed, hate,
spitefulness are more fully developed in man than in the lower orders. These
are axiomatic truths that require no demonstration.
ANIMALS NOT CRUEL
Even the lion is merciful when he makes his
kill, thought doubtless not intentionally so; and the psychology of terror aids
the swift mercy of his destruction. Men who have been charged and mauled by
lions, and lived to tell of the experience, felt neither fear nor pain during
the experience.
In the quite reasonable event that this
statement may arouse some skepticism, permit me to quote from that very
splendid work on animals, Mother Nature, by William J. Long, a book that should
be read by every adult and be required reading in every high school course in
the land:
"There are other and more definite
experiences from which to form a judgment, and of these the adventure of
Livingstone is the first to be considered, since he was probably the firs to
record the stupefying effect of a charging animal. The great missionary and
explorer was once severely mauled by a lion, his flesh being torn in eleven
places by the brute's claws, and his shoulder crushed by the more terrible
fangs. Here is a condensation of the story, as recorded in Missionary Travels
and Research in South Africa:
"'Growling horribly close to my ear,
the lion shook me as a terrier does a rat. The shock produced a stupor similar
to that which seems to be felt by a mouse after the first shake of the cat. It
caused a sort of dreaminess, in which there was no sense of pain nor feeling of
terror.'"
Compare this, then, with the methods of the
present day gangster who cruelly tortures his victims before he kills
him. The lion sought only to kill, not to inflict pain. Recall the methods of
the Inquisition, and then search the records of man's experiences with lions,
tigers, or any of the more formidable creatures of the wild for a parallel in
studied cruelty.
Let me quote one more interesting instance
given in Mr. Long's book:
"We open at random to the experience
of an English officer who, in 1895, was fearfully clawed and bitten by a lion,
and who writes of the experience:
"'Regarding my sensations during the
time the attack upon me by the lion was in progress, I had no feeling of pain
whatever, although there was a distinct feeling of being bitten; that is, I was
perfectly conscious independently of seeing the performance, that the lion was
gnawing at me, but there was no pain. To show that the feeling, or rather want
of it, was in no wise due to excessive terror I may mention that, whilst my
thighs were being gnawed, I took two cartridges out of the breast pocket of my
shirt and threw them to the Kaffir, who was hovering a few yards away, telling
him to load my rifle.'"
Perhaps I am not wise in giving further
publicity to these statements, since they must definitely take much of the
thrill out of Tarzan stories by placing lion mauling in a category with
interesting and pleasurable experiences.
TARZAN'S CHARACTER
Having demonstrated that the most savage
animals in their most terrifying moods reveal qualities far less terrible than
those possessed by man, let us see how association with these beasts combined
with the hereditary instincts of a noble bloodline to produce in Tarzan a
character finer than either of the sources from which it derived.
Necessity required him to kill for food and
in defense of his life, but the example of his savage associates never
suggested that pleasure might be found in killing, and the chivalry that was in
his blood stream prevented him imagining such pleasure in youth without such
example. His viewpoint toward death was seemingly callous, but it was without
cruelty.
His attitude toward women and other
creatures weaker than he, was partially the result of innate chivalry;
partially the natural outcome of a feeling of superiority engendered both by
knowledge of his mental or physical superiority to every creature that had had
come within his ken, and by heredity; and partially by an indifference born of
absolute clean-mindedness and perfection of health.
THE APPEAL OF ESCAPE
His appeal to an audience is so tremendous
that it never ceases to be a source of astonishment to me. This appeal, I
believe, is based upon an almost universal admiration of these two qualities,
and the natural inclination of every normal person to enjoy picturing himself
as either heroic or beautiful or both. Linked to these is the constant urge to
escape that is becoming stronger in all of us prisoners of civilization as
civilization becomes more complex.
We wish to escape not alone the narrow
confines of city streets for the freedom of the wilderness, but the
restrictions of man-made laws, and the inhibitions that society has placed upon
us. We like to picture ourselves as roaming free, the lords of ourselves and of
our world; in other words, we would each like to be Tarzan. At least I would; I
admit it.
Unconsciously or consciously, we seek to
emulate the creatures we admire. Doubtless there are many people trying to be
like the late Theodore Roosevelt, or like Robert Millikan, or Jack Dempsey, or
Doug Fairbanks, because they greatly admire one of these characters. Fiction
characters are just as real to most of us as are these celebrities of today or
the past; d'Artagnan is as much flesh and blood as Napoleon. Perhaps the
influence of d'Artagnan has had a finer influence upon the forming of character
than has that of the great Corsican.
TARZAN'S INFLUENCE
To indicate the force for good which a
fiction character may exercise, I can do no better than cite the testimony of
Eddie Eagan, Amateur Heavyweight Champion of the World, whose very interesting
series of articles appeared in the Saturday Evening Post. As a boy Eagan read
the Frank Merriwell books, and his admiration for this fiction character shaped
his future life. Among other achievements Merriwell became an athlete and a
Yale man, and these became two of Eagan's ambitions. Although a poor boy, Eagan
worked his way through an education, first in college in Denver, then through
Yale, and finally Oxford; and he became one of the greatest athletes of our
times.
Years ago, when I came to a realization of
the hold that Tarzan had taken upon the imaginations of many people, I was glad
that I had made of him the sort of character that I had; and since then I have
been careful not to permit him to let his foot slip, no matter what the
temptation. I must admit that at times this has been difficult when I have
placed him in situations where I would not have been quite sure of my own
footing, and it has also not been easy to keep him from being a Prue.
On the whole, however, I must have been
more or less successful, for all ages and both sexes continue to admire him;
and he goes his bloody way scattering virtue and sudden death indiscriminately
and in all directions.
He may not be a force for good; and if he
entertains, that is all I care about; but I am sure that he is not a force for
evil, which is something these days.