For my next book, I sought a completely different genre. I had read Tarzan of the Apes as a young teen and enjoyed the movies, though not much like the book, with Johnny Weissmuller in the lead. He was a five time Olympic gold medal winner for swimming which suited him for the role. While reading Tarzan, it occurred to me that Helen and Tarzan had a few things in common, but with one major difference that is worth celebrating. (VIDEO: the famous Tarzan yell)
The biggest difference between them is FACT vs FICTION of course, but if you hang in there with me, I hope this will be fun to think about without too many spoilers.
Both Helen Keller and Tarzan were born in the 1880s, Helen in northern Alabama, Tarzan in the wilds of Africa where his parents had been abandoned by mutineers while traveling to a new post in British West Africa. The Kellers loved Helen, and the Claytons (Lord and Lady Greystoke) loved their baby who would be called Tarzan. The Claytons had high hopes for their son to grow and learn.
from “Tarzan of the Apes”
by Edgar Rice Burroughs
“In his leisure Clayton read, often aloud to his wife, from the store of books he had brought for their new home. Among these were many for little children--picture books, primers, readers--for they had known that their little child would be old enough for such before they might hope to return to England.” (Chapter 3 TOTA)
But everything went wrong when they died unexpectedly. (I’ll leave that part to your curiosity.) Their tiny infant boy was left alone and vulnerable.
“For a long time no sound broke the deathlike stillness of the jungle midday save the piteous wailing of the tiny man-child.” (Chapter 3 TOTA)
Thankfully for our fictional protagonist, Tarzan is taken by a great ape named Kala who raises him with the ape-tribe where he grew to be king of the apes.
What does this fictional character, raised by apes, who could see, hear and make sounds, but with no knowledge of human words or customs have to do with Helen Keller?
from “The Story of my life”
by helen Keller
“In the dreary month of February, (aged 19 months) came the illness which closed my eyes and ears and plunged me into the unconsciousness of a new-born baby. They called it acute congestion of the stomach and brain. The doctor thought I could not live. Early one morning, however, the fever left me as suddenly and mysteriously as it had come. There was great rejoicing in the family that morning, but no one, not even the doctor, knew that I should never see or hear again.
I fancy I still have confused recollections of that illness. I especially remember the tenderness with which my mother tried to soothe me in my waling hours of fret and pain, and the agony and bewilderment with which I awoke after a tossing half sleep, and turned my eyes, so dry and hot, to the wall away from the once-loved light, which came to me dim and yet more dim each day. But, except for these fleeting memories, if, indeed, they be memories, it all seems very unreal, like a nightmare.” (Chapter 2 SOML)
Five years passed as Helen tried to make sense of her world, trying her best to communicate with her family. She recognized things by smell and touch, but was locked in to her dark silent world.
“Gradually I got used to the silence and darkness that surrounded me and forgot that it had ever been different, until she came—my teacher--who was to set my spirit free.
The most important day I remember in all my life is the one on which my teacher, Anne Mansfield Sullivan, came to me. I am filled with wonder when I consider the immeasurable contrasts between the two lives which it connects. It was the third of March, 1887, three months before I was seven years old. Have you ever been at sea in a dense fog, when it seemed as if a tangible white darkness shut you in, and the great ship, tense and anxious, groped her way toward the shore with plummet and sounding-line, and you waited with beating heart for something to happen? I was like that ship before my education began, only I was without compass or sounding-line, and had no way of knowing how near the harbour was. "Light! give me light!" was the wordless cry of my soul, and the light of love shone on me in that very hour.” (Chapter 2 SOML)
The world was opening to Helen, now that she had someone to show her the way. But what of Tarzan? Throughout his youth, Tarzan revisited his parents’ cabin in the jungle, intrigued by the strange items inside. His visits there engaged his mind in ways the jungle could not for the members of his ape-tribe, he was a human.
“....he was anxious to return to the cabin and continue his investigations of its wondrous contents…He commenced a systematic search of the cabin; but his attention was soon riveted by the books which seemed to exert a strange and powerful influence over him, so that he could scarce attend to aught else for the lure of the wondrous puzzle which their purpose presented to him.” (Chapter 7 TOTA)
Once he discovered the children’s books Tarzan was forced to make deductions for himself with no one to help.
His little face was tense in study, for he had partially grasped, in a hazy, nebulous way, the rudiments of a thought which was destined to prove the key and the solution to the puzzling problem of the strange little bugs. (The letters looked like bugs to him.)
In his hands was a primer opened at a picture of a little ape similar to himself, but covered, except for hands and face, with strange, colored fur, for such he thought the jacket and trousers to be. Beneath the picture were three little bugs—BOY. And now he had discovered in the text upon the page that these three were repeated many times in the same sequence.
Another fact he learned--that there were comparatively few individual bugs; but these were repeated many times, occasionally alone, but more often in company with others. Slowly he turned the pages, scanning the pictures and the text for a repetition of the combination B-O-Y. Presently he found it beneath a picture of another little ape and a strange animal which went upon four legs like the jackal and resembled him not a little. Beneath this picture the bugs appeared as: A BOY AND A DOG. There they were, the three little bugs which always accompanied the little ape.
And so he progressed very, very slowly, for it was a hard and laborious task which he had set himself without knowing it--a task which might seem to you or me impossible--learning to read without having the slightest knowledge of letters or written language, or the faintest idea that such things existed.” (Chapter 7 TOTA)
As I read Tarzan of the Apes, I kept thinking back to Helen Keller’s autobiography. She learned the meaning of letters, words, and sentences. She learned because she had a teacher who used sign language to spell into her hand. If only Tarzan had someone to show him, explain, and give him the tools to learn. Is this not what a good teacher does? Helen said it best.
The morning after my teacher came she led me into her room and gave me a doll… When I had played with it a little while, Miss Sullivan slowly spelled into my hand the word "d-o-l-l." I was at once interested in this finger play and tried to imitate it. When I finally succeeded in making the letters correctly I was flushed with childish pleasure and pride. Running downstairs to my mother I held up my hand and made the letters for doll. I did not know that I was spelling a word or even that words existed; I was simply making my fingers go in monkey-like imitation. In the days that followed I learned to spell in this uncomprehending way a great many words, among them pin, hat, cup and a few verbs like sit, stand and walk. But my teacher had been
with me several weeks before I understood that everything has a name.
One day, while I was playing with my new doll, Miss Sullivan put my big rag doll into my lap also, spelled "d-o-l-l" and tried to make me understand that "d-o-l-l" applied to both. Earlier in the day we had had a tussle over the words "m-u-g" and "w-a-t-e-r." Miss Sullivan had tried to impress it upon me that "m-u-g" is mug and that "w-a-t-e-r" is water, but I persisted in confounding the two. In despair she had dropped the subject for the time, only to renew it at the first opportunity. I became impatient at her repeated attempts and, seizing the new doll, I dashed it upon the floor. I was keenly delighted when I felt the fragments of the broken doll at my feet. Neither sorrow nor regret followed my passionate outburst. I had not loved the doll. In the still, dark world in which I lived there was no strong sentiment or tenderness. I felt my teacher sweep the fragments to one side of the hearth, and I had a sense of satisfaction that the cause of my discomfort was removed. She brought me my hat, and I knew I was going out into the warm sunshine. This thought, if a wordless sensation may be called a thought, made me hop and skip with pleasure.
We walked down the path to the well-house, attracted by the fragrance of the honeysuckle with which it was covered. Someone was drawing water and my teacher placed my hand under the spout. As the cool stream gushed over one hand she spelled into the other the word water, first slowly, then rapidly. I stood still, my whole attention fixed upon the motions of her fingers.
Suddenly I felt a misty consciousness as of something forgotten--a thrill of returning thought; and somehow the mystery of language was revealed to me. I knew then that "w-a-t-e-r"
meant the wonderful cool something that was flowing over my hand. That living word awakened my soul, gave it light, hope, joy, set it free! There were barriers still, it is true, but barriers that could in time be swept away.
I left the well-house eager to learn. Everything had a name, and each name gave birth to a new thought. As we returned to the house every object which I touched seemed to quiver with life.
That was because I saw everything with the strange, new sight that had come to me. On entering the door I remembered the doll I had broken. I felt my way to the hearth and picked up the pieces. I tried vainly to put them together. Then my eyes filled with tears; for I realized what I had done, and for the first time I felt repentance and sorrow.
I learned a great many new words that day. I do not remember what they all were; but I do know that mother, father, sister, teacher were among them--words that were to make the world blossom for me, "like Aaron's rod, with flowers." It would have been difficult to find a happier child than I was as I lay in my crib at the close of that eventful day and lived over the joys it had brought me, and for the first time longed for a new day to come.” (Chapter 4 SOML)
