Chap­ter 22 — Tarzan Recov­ers His Rea­son fol­lows the jour­ney of Tarzan as he slow­ly pieces togeth­er frag­ments of his past, strug­gling to make sense of mem­o­ries that seem just out of reach. While play­ing with peb­bles from his pouch, he reflects on his life, rec­og­niz­ing that cer­tain images and feel­ings have been cloud­ed by time. His mem­o­ries, par­tic­u­lar­ly those relat­ed to a mys­te­ri­ous woman and the yel­low met­al, per­sis­tent­ly elude him, yet the desire to recon­nect with these for­got­ten moments remains strong. Deter­mined to under­stand the sig­nif­i­cance of these frag­ments, Tarzan sets out in search of the places where he encoun­tered these elu­sive clues, hop­ing they will unlock the truth about his iden­ti­ty and his past life.

Through­out his jour­ney, Tarzan grap­ples with the demands of sur­vival while also expe­ri­enc­ing moments of deep intro­spec­tion. As he hunts and nav­i­gates the chal­lenges of the jun­gle, his path cross­es with Wer­p­er, a man who had once stolen valu­able jew­els from him. This encounter reignites Tarzan’s pur­suit of not just the jew­els but also of his frac­tured mem­o­ries, fur­ther pro­pelling him on a quest to reclaim the pieces of his iden­ti­ty. In this way, the jun­gle becomes both a phys­i­cal and emo­tion­al bat­tle­field for Tarzan as he seeks to make sense of who he tru­ly is and what role these elu­sive mem­o­ries play in his jour­ney of self-dis­cov­ery.

The themes of iden­ti­ty and mem­o­ry dom­i­nate this chap­ter, with Tarzan’s inter­nal strug­gle serv­ing as a poignant explo­ration of the human desire to under­stand one­self. Caught between his life as a wild man of the jun­gle and the rem­nants of a life once lived among humans, Tarzan wres­tles with his dual nature. The jun­gle, with all its beau­ty and dan­ger, mir­rors Tarzan’s inter­nal con­flict, serv­ing as both a nur­tur­ing and hos­tile envi­ron­ment. Through encoun­ters with nature’s fiercest ele­ments and fleet­ing mem­o­ries of the past, Tarzan is forced to con­front the com­plex­i­ties of his exis­tence, as he seeks to rec­on­cile his pri­mal instincts with his lost human­i­ty. The nar­ra­tive is enriched by these lay­ered explo­rations of what it means to be human, and how much of our past defines who we become.

The ten­sion height­ens as Tarzan’s jour­ney is inter­rupt­ed by the arrival of a Bel­gian offi­cer and sol­diers, lead­ing to his cap­ture along with Wer­p­er. In cap­tiv­i­ty, the duo must nav­i­gate their pre­car­i­ous sit­u­a­tion, using cun­ning to manip­u­late their cap­tors and for­mu­late an escape plan. Despite being trapped, Tarzan begins to expe­ri­ence flash­es of recog­ni­tion when a famil­iar name—Lord Greystoke—is men­tioned, trig­ger­ing the first real break­through in his recov­ery of mem­o­ries. This spark of recog­ni­tion serves as a cat­a­lyst for his jour­ney for­ward, remind­ing him of a life he had long for­got­ten, and pro­pelling him toward the dis­cov­ery of his true self.

Wer­p­er, des­per­ate to save him­self, makes a fraud­u­lent claim about his own iden­ti­ty, which inad­ver­tent­ly trig­gers the slow return of Tarzan’s lost mem­o­ries. As the nar­ra­tive unfolds, the ten­sion between the two char­ac­ters grows, with Werper’s deceit act­ing as an unin­ten­tion­al cat­a­lyst for Tarzan’s emo­tion­al awak­en­ing. Tarzan, though still uncer­tain about his iden­ti­ty, begins to piece togeth­er the frag­ments of his past, dri­ven by an increas­ing sense of urgency to find his wife, Jane, and reclaim his place in the world. The con­flict inten­si­fies as Tarzan’s pur­suit of self-dis­cov­ery becomes inex­tri­ca­bly linked to his desire to escape cap­tiv­i­ty, recon­nect with his past, and con­front the truths about who he has become.

The con­clu­sion of the chap­ter presents a turn­ing point for Tarzan, as the immi­nent escape from cap­tiv­i­ty sig­nals the begin­ning of his renewed jour­ney of self-dis­cov­ery. The restora­tion of his mem­o­ries hints at a rebirth, as Tarzan pre­pares to face both the chal­lenges of the wild that raised him and the truths of his past life. His quest for iden­ti­ty is far from over, and the chap­ter ends with a sense of hope and antic­i­pa­tion, sug­gest­ing that Tarzan’s future holds both the res­o­lu­tion of his mem­o­ries and the ongo­ing explo­ration of his human­i­ty. In the process, the chap­ter weaves togeth­er themes of self-aware­ness, sur­vival, and the indomitable human spir­it, paint­ing a pow­er­ful por­trait of a man on the cusp of reclaim­ing his true self.