# Tarzan of the Apes — Character guide

> Key figures in Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs.

- [Tarzan](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/tarzan_of_the_apes_se/characters/tarzan.md): Tarzan grows up among the tribe of Kerchak, mastering the knife, the bow, and the language of beasts, yet he is neither fully ape nor fully man. When white strangers are marooned near his parents' old cabin, he secretly 
- [Jane Porter](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/tarzan_of_the_apes_se/characters/jane_porter.md): Jane Porter arrives in Africa aboard a treasure-hunting expedition and finds herself abandoned on a savage shore with her father, Clayton, and a superstitious maid. Brave and quick-witted, she is drawn to the mysterious 
- [John Clayton](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/tarzan_of_the_apes_se/characters/john_clayton.md): Lord Greystoke arrives in Africa on a colonial posting, only to be abandoned by mutinous sailors on a hostile shore. Resourceful and dignified, he constructs a cabin from salvaged ship's timber and journals their ordeal,
- [William Cecil Clayton](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/tarzan_of_the_apes_se/characters/william_cecil_clayton.md): Clayton is everything Tarzan is not: educated, well-mannered, and comfortable in drawing rooms, yet he proves surprisingly brave when the party is stranded in Africa. He genuinely cares for Jane and believes himself the 
- [Lieutenant D'Arnot](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/tarzan_of_the_apes_se/characters/lieutenant_darnot.md): D'Arnot arrives in Africa with a French cruiser searching for survivors and is soon taken prisoner by a savage tribe, where Tarzan finds him near death. Grateful and perceptive, he recognizes the ape-man's humanity and u
- [Professor Porter](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/tarzan_of_the_apes_se/characters/professor_porter.md): Professor Archimedes Q. Porter is a white-haired academic so absorbed in scholarly debate that he barely notices the cannibals, lions, and mutineers surrounding him. His obsession with the treasure that brought them to A
- [Samuel T. Philander](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/tarzan_of_the_apes_se/characters/samuel_philander.md): Philander is the long-suffering companion and foil to Professor Archimedes Q. Porter, dragged along on the expedition that strands the Porter party in Africa. His testy relationship with the professor — decades of devoti
- [Esmeralda](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/tarzan_of_the_apes_se/characters/esmeralda.md): Esmeralda is Jane's constant attendant, a woman whose terror at the African wilderness is as loud as it is sincere. When a manlike beast snatches Jane from beside her, Esmeralda's scream mingles with her mistress's befor
- [Kerchak](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/tarzan_of_the_apes_se/characters/kerchak.md): Kerchak rules the anthropoid tribe into which Tarzan is adopted, a brute monarch whose authority rests on strength and fear. He is jealous of Tarzan's cunning and growing prowess, and his 'little evil brain' searches con
- [Kala](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/tarzan_of_the_apes_se/characters/kala.md): Kala is Tarzan's ape mother, a fine young female who found the infant Lord Greystoke and refused every demand to abandon him. Against her husband Tublat's insistence that the slow, hairless child is a burden, and against
- [Robert Canler](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/tarzan_of_the_apes_se/characters/robert_canler.md): Canler is the well-heeled American who wants to marry Jane, a match that would solve the Porter family's financial troubles and which Jane herself does not love. He moves through the civilized world of the novel with the
- [Terkoz](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/tarzan_of_the_apes_se/characters/terkoz.md): Terkoz is the tribe's resident bully, a savage brute who beats an old female to provoke Tarzan and who would be chosen leader the moment Tarzan stepped aside. His hatred of the ape-man is personal and relentless, and the
- [Sabor](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/tarzan_of_the_apes_se/characters/sabor.md): Sabor prowls the jungle as the predator every ape and villager dreads, a name mothers use to frighten children into obedience. She is the primal threat against which Tarzan's courage is measured, the beast whose memory K
- [Lady Alice](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/tarzan_of_the_apes_se/characters/lady_alice.md): Tarzan's mother, dies of grief after being marooned.
- [Tublat](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/tarzan_of_the_apes_se/characters/tublat.md): Kala's mate, a fierce ape who hates Tarzan.
- [Kulonga](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/tarzan_of_the_apes_se/characters/kulonga.md): Son of Mbonga, killed by Tarzan in revenge for Kala's death.
- [Mbonga](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/tarzan_of_the_apes_se/characters/mbonga.md): Chief of the cannibal village in the jungle.
- [Black Michael](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/tarzan_of_the_apes_se/characters/black_michael.md): Mutineer who sets the Claytons adrift.
- [Lieutenant Charpentier](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/tarzan_of_the_apes_se/characters/lieutenant_charpentier.md): French officer wounded in a duel with Tarzan.
- [Captain Dufranne](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/tarzan_of_the_apes_se/characters/captain_dufranne.md): French naval captain who aids the search party.

HTML index: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/tarzan_of_the_apes_se/characters