The journey from savagery to civilization: a Lacanian reading of Burroughs’ Tarzan of the apes

الملخص EN

Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Tarzan of the Apes (1912) represents the struggle experienced by many within the imperial scheme or rather the scenario of the establishment of the ‘civilized’ world: the dilemma of reconciling with two distinct identities while trying to assimilate within the ‘other’ community, or conforming to the ‘other’ mirror.

through Tarzan’s adventurous uprising from savagery to nobility, an allegorical representation of the journey of man from the darkness of savagery to the light of knowledge, the narrative unfolds various binary discourses one of which is that of us versus them.

in the light of Lacan’s theory of the ‘mirror stage’and its role in the formation of the subject’s identity, the present paper attempts a reading of the novel in terms of this binary confrontation, which makes the novel an emblematic of western literature that aims to mirror the western imperial legacy.

by doing so, the study aims at focusing on the role of imperial narratives in reflecting the colonial ideology.

the study also highlights Tarzan’s quest for identity which represents the need of many who have long suffered under reconciling their hybrid identities resulting from the colonial experience.

this is done through investigating the different visual, textual and cultural mirrors he encounters in his process of evolution.