"Tarzan's First Love"

Critical Sources:

Holtsmark, Erling B. Edgar Rice Burroughs. Twayne United States Author Series. Boston: Twayne, 1986. 

---. Tarzan and Tradition.  Westport, Conn: Greenwood, 1981.

"Tarzan's First Love" was reprinted in a 1975 anthology entitled Love Stories. What are the typical expectations of a "love story"? In what ways does this story satisfy those expectations? In what way does it frustrate those expectations?

What tension is caused by the possibility of Tarzan "winning" Teeka for his mate?

Burroughs describes Teeka: "Helen of Troy was never one whit more proud than was Teeka at that moment" (176). Holtsmark claims that "the reference to Troy and the Trojan War . . . sort[s] out the underlying tensions of that passage" (ERB 37). How does that allusion help develop the scene?

Holtsmark claims that "like the gods" of the Greeks, Burroughs has "humanized" the apes (Tarzan 73).  In what ways do the apes resemble Greek gods and in what ways do they display human characteristics?

 Perhaps Teeka looked something like Kumba (at Chicago’s Lincoln Park Zoo), this photo from the Gorilla Haven site.