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The Collective Concussions
of Tarzan of the Apes: Part II

by Alan Hanson

Part Two

(Part Two of “The Collective Concussions of Tarzan of the Apes” focuses on the most serious concussion
Tarzan suffered and how Edgar Rice Burroughs used concussions as a plot device.)

In mid-December 1913, Tarzan, accompanied by 50 Waziri warriors, left his Greystoke farm in East Africa bound for Opar. There Lord Greystoke hoped to carry away enough gold ingots to replenish the fortune he had lost in a failed European financial venture. Tarzan, who was 25 at the time, had already suffered a half-dozen concussions in his young life. However, while he was engaged in raiding Opar’s treasure chamber, he suffered, by far, the most serious head trauma of his entire life.

Just after leaving the storagechamber, a jagged fragment of rock, loosened by a sudden earthquake, fell from above, gashing a deep cut upon his head, sending Tarzan plunging into “total forgetfulness of the past,” according to ERB. The ape-man staggered back into the chamber and rolled unconscious on the stone floor. The villainous Belgian, Albert Werper, who had followed Tarzan to Opar, was also trapped in the treasure chamber. He was convinced Tarzan was dead, as “from a great gash in the man’s head a pool of blood had collected upon the concrete floor.” However, Tarzan was not dead, though still dreadfully injured as a result of the concussion.

“For some time Tarzan lay where he had fallen upon the floor of the treasure chamber … At length he stirred. His eyes opened upon the utter darkness of the room. He raised his hand to his head and brought it away sticky with clotted blood. He sniffed at his fingers, as a wild beast might sniff at the life-blood upon a wounded paw. Slowly he rose to a sitting posture … He staggered to his feet, and groped his way about among the tiers of ingots. What was he? Where was he? His head ached; but otherwise he felt no ill effects from the blow that had felled him. The accident he did not recall, nor did he recall aught of what had led up to it.”

Tarzan vaguely realized that something was wrong with him. “He was not sure of himself,” Burroughs explained. He tried to remember recent events, but they wouldn’t come into focus. “There was a tantalizing suggestion,” ERB noted, “always present in his mind that something was eluding him — that he should know many things which he did not know.”

Later, after roaming through Opar’s underworld, he came upon some jewels of fabulous value, but to him they were simply “pretty pebbles.” Tarzan’s mind was slowly repairing itself, but it would take a long time to do so completely. In fact, nearly two months would pass before Tarzan again realized who he was. Even when La told him his name was “Tarzan,” it didn’t register in the ape-man’s consciousness. He merely shrugged and responded, “Well, it is a good name — I know no other, so I will keep it; but I do not know you.”

Reverting to the Primitive

Burroughs declared that Tarzan had “reverted to the primitive” following the accident. He wandered about searching for food, finding it beneath rocks and fallen trees, as he had in his youth as an ape.

The concussion had not affected the language center in his brain. He spoke with La in ape language, and when Albert Werper spoke to him in a different language, the ape-man understood. “Without effort,” ERB noted, “and apparently without realizing that he made the change, Tarzan repeated his question in French.” Later Tarzan also demonstrated a “mechanical knowledge” of English.

After the two men escaped from Opar, they travelled together for about a month. During that time, ERB described the strange effects the concussion had wrought in Tarzan’s consciousness. “The refinements of his recent civilization expunged by the force of the sad calamity which had befallen him, left only the primitive sensibilities which his childhood’s training had imprinted indelibly upon the fabric of his mind,” the author observed. When Tarzan failed to notice a lion creeping closer through the reeds, Burroughs wondered, “Perhaps the blow upon his head had numbed his senses, temporarily — who may say?”

As they wandered, Tarzan began to sense that he belonged somewhere else. “All the time there lurked in the back of his injured brain a troublesome conviction that he had no business where he was,” Burroughs stated. “That he should be, for some unaccountable reason, elsewhere and among another sort of creature.”

Jane the Key to Recovery

It was Tarzan’s deep-seated memories of Jane that slowly began the healing process in the ape-man’s brain.

“Within the hut his nostrils were assailed by many odors; but clear and distinct among them was one that half aroused a latent memory of the past — it was the faint and delicate odor of a woman. With the cognizance of it there rose in the breast of the ape-man a strange uneasiness — the result of an irresistible force which he was destined to become acquainted with anew — the instinct which draws the male to his mate.”

Many other memories began to surface in his mind, but his injured brain still could not connect them with each other or with the woman.

“Slowly and painfully, recollection was attempting to reassert itself, the hurt brain was mending, as the cause of its recent failure to function was being slowly absorbed or removed by the healing processes of perfect circulation. The people who now passed before his mind’s eye for the first time in weeks wore familiar faces; but yet he could neither place them in the niches they had once filled in his past life, nor call them by name. One was a fair she, and it was her face which most often moved through the tangled recollections of his convalescing brain. Who was she? What had she been to Tarzan of the Apes?”

The sight of his African farm also provided clues that helped his mind along the road to remembering people and places from his past.

“There was a building — there were many buildings — and there were hedges, fences, and flowers. Tarzan puckered his brow in puzzled study of the wonderful problem. For an instant he seemed to grasp the whole of a true explanation, and then, just as success was within his grasp, the picture faded into a jungle scene where a naked, white youth danced in company with a band of hairy, primordial ape-things.”

Still, it brought him closer to connecting the dots.

“Tarzan shook his head and sighed. Why was it that he could not recollect? At least he was sure that in some way the pile of gold, the place where it lay, the subtle aroma of the elusive she he had been pursuing, the memory figure of the white woman, and he, himself, were inextricably connected by the ties of a forgotten past.”

Tarzan had been struggling mightily to recall the identity of the fair-haired woman in his memory. In the end, though, it was hearing his own English name that restored normal function to his brain. Albert Werper had not wanted Tarzan to remember past events, but when Tarzan appeared ready to kill him for stealing his “pretty pebbles,” the frightened Belgian told Tarzan who he was. That proved the key to the restoring the health of Tarzan’s brain.

“Why man, you are Lord Greystoke,” cried the Belgian. “You were injured by a falling rock when the earthquake shattered the passage to the underground chamber to which you and your black Waziri had come to fetch golden ingots back to your bungalow. The blow shattered your memory. You are John Clayton, Lord Greystoke — don’t you remember?”

“John Clayton, Lord Greystoke!” repeated Tarzan. Then for a moment he was silent. Presently his hand went falteringly to his forehead, an expression of wonderment filled his eyes — of wonderment and sudden understanding. The forgotten name had reawakened the returning memory that had been struggling to reassert itself. The ape-man relinquished his grasp upon the throat of the Belgian, and leaped to his feet. “God!” he cried, and then, “Jane!”

The six recorded concussions Tarzan suffered prior to the one caused by the earthquake at Opar had each left the ape-man unconscious for a period of a few seconds to a few hours, but his brain always quickly regained normal function within a few moments of regaining consciousness. However, the falling rock at Opar caused damage to Tarzan’s brain that lasted over 45 days. No ordinary human being could have survived six concussions, all causing loss of consciousness, much less a catastrophic seventh one by age of 25, without serious brain damage or death. Tarzan did, though. In fact, he went on to suffer at least 20 more concussions in his life without serious injury to his brain. (Perhaps it’s evidence that Tarzan of the Apes had super powers of both body and brain.)

Concussions as a Literary Stratagem

Tarzan’s serious concussion is a fundamental element in the story told in Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar. It had repercussions for his relationships with all the other characters in the story, and it created the suspense that drove the narrative nearly all the way from beginning to end.

The easiest fallback strategy for the author to make his ape-man vulnerable to capture was to allow Tarzan to suffer a brief period of unconsciousness, during which he could be captured and bound. Time and time again, Burroughs created that condition by having his hero suffer a concussion caused by a blow to the head. He used the tactic about 30 times in 18 of his Tarzan stories, starting with his second Tarzan book, The Return of Tarzan in 1913 and on through to his last Tarzan book, Tarzan and “The Foreign Legion” in 1947.

Some critics might point to Edgar Rice Burroughs’ overuse of such literary devices, along with an over-dependence on coincidence in his plots, as evidence that he was a second-rate writer. However, many of us who grew to love Burroughs’ fiction did so because of his strong characters and the thrilling adventures he led them through. We cared little for lethargic, dramatic buildups. If the story called for Tarzan’s capture, just knock him on the head and keep the action moving. That was fine with us.

Edgar Rice Burroughs was once asked to name some fiction stories that he found uninteresting. Among his responses was “anything by Charles Dickens.” For those who enjoy mood and background, there is plenty to be found in the tomes of Dickens and his like. For those of us who enjoy action and adventure, there’s Edgar Rice Burroughs.

READ PART 1 AT
https://www.erbzine.com/mag80/8085.html

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