Tarzan (book series)

==Critical reception==
While ''Tarzan of the Apes'' met with some critical success, subsequent books in the series received a cooler reception and have been criticized for being derivative and [[formulaic]]. The characters are often said to be two-dimensional, the dialogue wooden, and the storytelling devices (such as excessive reliance on [[coincidence]]) strain credulity. While Burroughs is not a polished novelist, he is a vivid storyteller, and many of his novels are still in print. In 1963, author [[Gore Vidal]] wrote a piece on the Tarzan series that, while pointing out several of the deficiencies that the Tarzan books have as works of literature, praises Edgar Rice Burroughs for creating a compelling "daydream figure."

Despite critical panning, the Tarzan stories have been amazingly popular. Fans love his [[melodrama]]tic situations and the elaborate details he works into his fictional world, such as his construction of a partial language for his great apes.

[[Image:Harikalar Diyari Tarzan 06014 nevit.jpg|thumb|left|Tarzan walking, in this display from an Ankara amusement park.]]
Since the beginning of the 1970s, Tarzan books and movies have often been criticized as being blatantly [[racism|racist]]. The early books often give a negative and [[Stereotypes of Africans|stereotypical portrayal of native Africans]], both [[Arab]] and [[Black people|black]]. In ''The Return of Tarzan'', Arabs are "surly looking" and say things like "dog of a Christian," while blacks are "lithe, ebon warriors, gesticulating and jabbering." He used every ploy for the purpose of painting his antagonists in simple unflattering colors.  While he commonly uses racial stereotypes of black people, his later books also contain black characters that are good-hearted, generous, and intelligent.  At the end of ''Tarzan And The Jewels Of Opar'' (1918), the fifth book in the twenty-four-book series, Burroughs writes, "Lord and Lady Greystoke with Basuli and Mugambi rode together at the head of the column, laughing and talking together in that easy familiarity which common interests and mutual respect breed between honest and intelligent men of any races."  Burroughs explains somewhat Tarzan's attitudes toward people in general in ''Tarzan And The City Of Gold'' (1933), where he writes, "Ordinarily, Tarzan was no more concerned by the fate of a white man than by that of a black man or any other created thing to which he was not bound by ties of friendship; the life of a man meant less to Tarzan of the Apes than the life of an ape."

Other ethnic groups and social classes are likewise rendered as stereotypes; this was the custom in popular fiction of the time. A Swede has "a long yellow moustache, an unwholesome complexion, and filthy nails" and Russians cheat at cards. The aristocracy (excepting the House of Greystoke) and royalty are invariably effete.

In later books, there is an attempt to portray Africans in a more realistic light. For example, in ''Tarzan's Quest'', while the hero is still Tarzan, and the black Africans relatively primitive, they are portrayed as individuals, with good and bad traits, and the main villains have white skins. Burroughs never does get over his distaste for European royalty, though.

Burroughs' opinions, made known mainly through the narrative voice in the stories, reflect attitudes widely held in his time, which in a 21st-century context would be considered racist and [[sexist]]. The author is not especially mean-spirited in his attitudes. His heroes do not engage in [[violence against women]] or in [[Ethnic hatred|racially motivated violence]]. Still, a superior-inferior relationship between races is plain and occasionally explicit.  According to [[James Loewen]]'s ''Sundown Towns'', this may be a vestige of Burroughs having been from [[Oak Park, Illinois]], a former [[Sundown town]] (a town that forbids non-whites from living within it) – or it may very well be the fact these were common attitudes at the turn of the century.

Some defenders of the Tarzan series argue that some of the words Burroughs uses to describe Africans, such as "savage," were generally understood to have a different and less offensive meaning in the early 20th century than they do today.{{citation needed|date=September 2015}}