Tarzan and the Black Boy explained

What happens

Themes in this chapter

• Nature vs. Nurture

  Tarzan attempts to nurture Tibo in the ape way, but the child's innate fear and lack of 'imagination' highlight the tension between natural instinct and learned behavior.

• Otherness and Prejudice

  Tibo is viewed as an alien 'Go-bu-balu' by Tarzan, and the narrative explicitly contrasts the 'dull Negroid mind' with Tarzan's 'divine spark,' reinforcing racial otherness.

• Survival and Instinct

  Tibo's terror of the jungle and its predators underscores the primal survival instincts that both Tarzan and the apes possess.

• Love and Affection

  Tarzan's growing fondness for Tibo and his tender care for Gazan contrast with the fierce maternal love of Teeka and Momaya.

Characters to notice

• Tarzan

  Fashions a new rope, cares for Gazan, and attempts to raise the captured black boy Tibo as his own balu.

• Teeka

  Feeds in the clearing and shows trust in Tarzan by allowing him to play with and pursue her infant Gazan.

• Gazan

  Teeka's playful balu who distracts Tarzan by stealing his rope and is later cared for by the ape-man.

• Tibo

  The captured black boy, terrified of Tarzan and the jungle, but gradually begins to trust and admire his captor.

• Momaya

  Tibo's mother, grief-stricken and angry with the witch-doctor, considers seeking help from Bukawai.

• Witch Doctor

  Consulted by Momaya but fails to locate Tibo; driven away by her shrewish tongue after demanding more goats.

• Bukawai

  Mentioned as the unclean outcast who dwells in a cave with hyenas and is known for black magic.

• Taug

  Mentioned as the sullen sire of Gazan who no longer suspects Tarzan's intentions toward his offspring.

Key passages

• “for Tarzan is a mighty fighter. None so great as Tarzan, son of Kala. Do not fear.”

  Tarzan reassures the trembling child by boasting of his own strength and reputation as a fighter.

  Tarzan tries to comfort Tibo by asserting his prowess, but the child cannot understand the ape language.

• “It was quite certain to Tarzan that Go-bu-balu's speech was not talk at all. It sounded quite as senseless as the chattering of the silly birds.”

  Tarzan dismisses Tibo's language as meaningless noise, comparing it to bird calls.

  Highlights Tarzan's ignorance of human language and his assumption that ape speech is the only true form of communication.

• “In imagination he was wanting, and imagination is but another name for super-intelligence. Imagination it is which builds bridges, and cities, and empires. The beasts know it not, the blacks only a little, while to one in a hundred thousand of earth's dominant race it is given as a gift from heaven that man may not perish from the earth.”

  The narrator asserts that imagination, a form of super-intelligence, is almost absent in blacks and beasts but rare among the white race, enabling civilization.

  A racially charged passage that explicitly links imagination to racial superiority, reflecting the author's worldview.

• “Momaya, being of a short temper and of another people, had little respect for the witch-doctor of her husband's tribe, and so, when he suggested that a further payment of two more fat goats would doubtless enable him to make stronger medicine, she promptly loosed her shrewish tongue upon him”

  Momaya, angry and from a different tribe, berates the witch-doctor when he demands more goats for stronger magic.

  Shows Momaya's independent spirit and her frustration with the witch-doctor's ineffective remedies.