Tarzan of the Apes · Chapter
XX: Heredity explained
Tarzan carries Jane through the jungle to the ape amphitheater, where he provides her with fruit and builds a bower for her.
What happens
Tarzan carries Jane through the jungle to the ape amphitheater, where he provides her with fruit and builds a bower for her. Jane feels a growing sense of trust and love for Tarzan, despite his savage nature. Tarzan, influenced by his hereditary instincts, acts with chivalry and gives Jane his mother's locket. He guards her through the night, and Jane awakens feeling safe and grateful.
Themes in this chapter
Heredity and Aristocracy
Tarzan's innate chivalry and graciousness, despite his savage upbringing, are depicted as hereditary traits from his noble lineage.
Love and Instinct
Jane's growing love for Tarzan and his instinctive desire to protect and please her drive the chapter's emotional arc.
Civilization vs. Wilderness
Tarzan's struggle between his ape training and human heredity highlights the conflict between civilized instincts and wild upbringing.
Characters to notice
- Tarzan
Carries Jane to the amphitheater, provides fruit, builds a bower, gives her the locket, and guards her through the night, showing hereditary instincts of chivalry.
- Jane Porter
Feels trust and love for Tarzan, examines the locket, accepts his gift, and sleeps safely in the bower guarded by Tarzan.
- Terkoz
Mentioned as the ape from whom Tarzan rescued Jane.
- Kala
Mentioned as Tarzan's adoptive mother who comforted him when he was frightened.
- Lady Alice
Her likeness is in the locket given to Jane.
- John Clayton
His likeness is in the locket given to Jane.
Key passages
“When Tarzan killed he more often smiled than scowled, and smiles are the foundation of beauty.”
Tarzan's killing is dispassionate and often accompanied by a smile, which contributes to his handsome appearance.
Highlights Tarzan's unique nature as a killer without malice.
“It was the hallmark of his aristocratic birth, the natural outcropping of many generations of fine breeding, an hereditary instinct of graciousness which a lifetime of uncouth and savage training and environment could not eradicate.”
Tarzan's gracious gesture of kissing the locket where Jane's lips had rested is a sign of his noble heredity, which his savage upbringing could not erase.
Emphasizes the theme of heredity overcoming environment.
“So Tarzan of the Apes did the only thing he knew to assure Jane of her safety. He removed his hunting knife from its sheath and handed it to her hilt first, again motioning her into the bower.”
To prove he meant no harm, Tarzan gave Jane his knife and lay guard at the bower entrance.
Shows Tarzan's instinctive chivalry and desire to protect Jane.