Meriem is a character in
Edgar Rice Burroughs's series of
Tarzan
Tarzan (John Clayton II, Viscount Greystoke) is a fictional character, an archetypal feral child raised in the African jungle by the Mangani great apes; he later experiences civilization, only to reject it and return to the wild as a heroic adv ...
novels, and the heroine of the fourth, ''
The Son of Tarzan
''The Son of Tarzan'' is a novel by American writer Edgar Rice Burroughs, the fourth in his series of twenty-four books about the title character Tarzan. It was written between January 21 and May 11, 1915, and first published in the magazine ' ...
''.
History
Born Jeanne Jacot, the daughter of French general Armand Jacot, Meriem is taken captive by Arabs as a child; they give her the name by which she is subsequently known. She is later rescued from her captors by
Korak, son of Tarzan, with whom she afterwards lives in the jungle. She is beautiful, strong, athletic, brave, daring and sensitive. She will kill for food but not for sport. The emerging relationship between the two feral teenagers is described sensitively, as the embittered boy and the abused girl learn to live and love together, saving each other from various dangers and drawing to the happy ending in which Meriem marries Korak and is reunited with her father who reveals that she is a "princess in her own right".
Meriem is an example of the "
Jungle Girl
A jungle girl (so-called, but usually adult woman) is an archetype or stock character, often used in popular fiction, of a female adventurer, superhero or even a damsel in distress living in a jungle or rainforest setting. An alternate depiction i ...
" archetype, in that she lives in the forest, dressed in skins and scavenging for food, with Korak as her guide and protector. Unlike others of the type, she has a past (she is a kidnap victim) and a future—as the wife of a junior English aristocrat and heir to an African chieftaincy. The tenth Tarzan book, ''
Tarzan and the Ant Men'', introduces her young son Jackie.
In Other Media
In the 1920 serial ''
The Son of Tarzan
''The Son of Tarzan'' is a novel by American writer Edgar Rice Burroughs, the fourth in his series of twenty-four books about the title character Tarzan. It was written between January 21 and May 11, 1915, and first published in the magazine ' ...
'', Meriem was portrayed by
Mae Giraci
Mae Georgia Giraci (January 22, 1910 – January 10, 2006), also known as May Giraci, May Garcia, May Geraci, May Giracci, May Giracia and Tina Rossi, was an American child actress who appeared in silent films between 1915 and 1929.
Giraci wa ...
as a young girl, and by
Nita Martan as an adult.
The character has also appeared in the ''Tarzan'' newspaper strip and in comic books featuring Korak.
External links
Text of ''The Son of Tarzan'' at Project Gutenberg
Tarzan characters
Literary characters introduced in 1916
Fantasy film characters
Jungle girls
Fictional French people
Fictional viscounts and viscountesses
Female characters in literature
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