Tarzan is extremely athletic, tall, handsome, and tanned, with grey eyes and long black hair. Emotionally, he is courageous, intelligent, loyal, and steadfast. He is presented as behaving ethically in most situations, except when seeking vengeance under the motivation of grief !

     Tarzan's jungle upbringing gives him abilities far beyond those of ordinary humans. These include climbing, clinging, and leaping as well as any great ape, or better. He uses branches and hanging vines to swing at great speed, a skill acquired among the anthropoid apes.

     Tarzan politely but firmly declines their attentions. When presented with a situation where a weaker individual or party is being preyed upon by a stronger foe, Tarzan invariably takes the side of the weaker party. In dealing with other men, Tarzan is firm and forceful. With male friends, he is reserved but deeply loyal and generous. As a host, he is likewise, generous, and gracious. As a leader, he commands devoted loyalty.

     He learns a new language in days, ultimately speaking many languages, including that of the great apes, French, English, Dutch, German, Swahili ,many Bantu dialects, Arabic, ancient Greek , ancient Latin ,Mayan , the languages of the Ant Men and of Pellucidar He also communicates with many species of jungle animals.

     As a young adult, Tarzan meets a young American woman, Jane Porter. She, her father and others of their party are marooned at exactly the same spot where Tarzan's biological parents were twenty years earlier. When Jane returns to America, Tarzan leaves the jungle in search of her, his one true love then Tarzan and Jane marry and lives with her for a time in England. They have one son, Jack, who takes the ape name Korak ("the Killer"). Tarzan is contemptuous of the hypocrisy of civilization.

     Although he is able to pass within society as a civilized individual, he prefers to "strip off the thin veneer of civilization," as Burroughs often puts it. His preferred dress is a knife and a loincloth of animal hide; his preferred abode is any convenient tree branch when he desires to sleep, and his favored food is raw meat, killed by himself; even better if he is able to bury it a week so that putrefaction has had a chance to tenderize it a bit.

     Finally, he and Jane return to Africa, making their home on an extensive estate that becomes a base for Tarzan's later adventures.