Quiz Questions for Burroughs’ Tarzan, Chs.1-6
NOTE: Don’t answer these on the blog this time. Instead, one of these questions will be an in-class response/quiz on Wednesday. Try to keep up with the reading so you can answer it, since you won’t be able to make it up later.
Why does the book open with a “frame narrative,” that is, by someone claiming to have found this story “in the form of a musty manuscript”? Why not simply tell the story from Tarzan’s point of view? How does this change how we read or respond to the work, especially for readers in 1914?
Do you think Lord Greystoke and his wife, Alice, represent a noble ideal of British culture or a parody of it? How can you support this from the early chapters of the novel?
How are the apes depicted in the novel? Are they too humanized (with names that almost sound normal, such as Kala, etc.) or are they too bestial? How do you think he wanted his audience to respond to them, especially given the ideas of nature and race we discussed on Monday?
In the Chapter, “The White Ape,” Burroughs writes, “It was nearly a year from the time the little fellow came into her possession before he would walk alone, and as for climbing—my, how stupid he was!” (37). How does this chapter challenge his audience to see “man” in a different light? What challenges and virtues does Tarzan have when removed into a different society?
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