"Uncle Bill" is another one of the biographies
of ERB and again it appears that he uses himself as the narrator. ERB also
appears as another character in the story.
The narrator, ERB, is born as female in April of 1919.
This most likely refers to the purchase of Otis’s ranch and his new life
that comes about because of the full birth of greatest creation, Tarzan.
Although Tarzan had been created some seven years earlier in text form,
the true Tarzan, the one that generated ERB’s wealth, is born with the
release of the movie Tarzan of the Apes in January of 1918.
Brother Bob is that Tarzan.
ERB probably struggled with a name for the narrator’s
name. He chooses Mary, the name of his nephew Studley’s wife, who died
in childbirth in April of 1919, which resulted in Studley moving in with
ERB in his new life at Tarzana, barely a month old itself.
So Mary is ERB’s new life. Bob is Tarzan of the movies.
All is good. But who is widowed Aunt Phoebe?
Aunt Phoebe is Emma Burroughs, who lost her husband, Uncle
Bill, the true ERB, upon the creation of John Carter, the great Civil War
adventurer who travels to Barsoom. So Uncle Bill is John Carter, the long
dead and hidden Civil War character. Uncle Bill is another incarnation
of ERB himself, as was John Carter.
The death of Uncle Bill was hidden by Aunt Phoebe for
years, during which time she was vivacious, out-going and positive. She
lived a life without Uncle Bill. She had loved him for a mere three years,
before he disappeared.
ERB and Emma had been married for three wonderful romantic
years until ERB’s gambling costs them everything in 1903, the same year
ERB begins his writing career with Minidoka, an utter flop.
The troubles continue through a succession of jobs, which he is never able
to hold for any length of time. The streak is finally broken with the creation
of John Carter. This erases the bad years, which are forgotten by Emma.
These seven years are compressed in the story to non-existence, or maybe
ERB believed that John Carter was born in his mind in 1903 and represents
his life as print author.
In 1934, Bob, who is really Tarzan of the Movies
breaks into the attic and exposes the death of Uncle Bill. Aunt Phoebe
commits suicide, but no resolution to the death of Uncle Bill is given.
1934 is the year that ERB meets and falls in love with
the enchanting Florence Dearholt, wife of ERB’s new partner, Ashton Dearholt.
It all comes about as Movie Tarzan invades ERB’s life in life-altering
ways.
First, the radio serial, "Tarzan and the Diamond
of Asher" invades ERB’s life as he develops the basic script from
"The Return of Tarzan," but abandons Jane. Marriage is broken.
Movie Tarzan dominates ERB’s life, and finances as the Guatemalan adventure
goes deeper into the swamps of the real world.
All of these things are just too much for Emma, Aunt Phoebe.
She quietly walks out of ERB’s life, and self-destructs.
There is no resolution for the death of Uncle Bill, because
in real life, there is no resolution. ERB’s marriage to his trophy wife
dissolved in 1941, some three years prior to the writing of Uncle
Bill. ERB fell apart upon this event. When he pushed aside his
previous wife he had this trophy awaiting him, but this time he is alone.
His health deteriorates, his drinking is on and off, his finances are depleted,
he struggles with the meaning of his life. He tries to “Laugh It
Off” but not very successfully. Finally, Emma dies in November
of 1944. ERB, who was in fairly constant contact with son Hulbert, must
have been aware of Emma’s deteriorating condition, as he was writing Uncle
Bill.
2. UNCLE WILLIAM
(ERB and Faulkner)
By John "Bridge" Martin
It took but a few paragraphs of "Uncle
Bill" by Edgar Rice Burroughs to be reminded of another story,
one which is among those considered classics: "A
Rose For Emily" by William Faulkner.
I first encountered Faulkner's short story from a literature
book in high school. The story is a memorable one and the type of story
that a high school-age boy would like, especially when getting to the grisly
ending.
There are enough parallels between the plot of "Uncle
Bill" and "A Rose for Emily" to make one wonder if great minds think alike,
and thus to wonder if ERB had thought up his story on his own, or if he
had been influenced by the writing of Faulkner, whose "Emily" was first
published in the April 30, 1930, number of The Forum. In either case, ERB's
lack of success in selling "Uncle Bill" could easily have been because
magazine editors recognized it as being too reminiscent of Faulkner's earlier
work.
Both stories are about women who had the men in their
life disappear and, in the end, it was discovered that the slain bodies
of said men had been locked away in the house all of the time.
In the case of "Emily," the skeleton of Homer Barron was
found in bed, alongside an indented pillow with a gray hair, presumably
belonging to Emily and implying that she had slept next to the corpse for
years after poisoning him. ERB's Aunt Phoebe was a bit tidier, making a
clean head shot with a gun and then packing Uncle Bill away in a trunk.
Faulkner's story, as mentioned, is regarded as a literary
classic while ERB's is a curiosity, something to be printed with other
unsaleable stories in a collection appropriately titled "Forgotten Tales
of Love and Murder." (And, yes, the story was published in that book in
2001.
ERB's story is shorter than Faulkner's, who adds a lot
of detail that gives one a better idea of the character of Miss Emily;
the reader has more insight into her eccentric lifestyle as a loner. To
use more modern parlance, she's kind of a weirdo who's probably a little
bit crazy as well.
Aunt Phoebe is more social and outgoing and has family
around her, including those two inquisitive little ones who take advantage
of her absence to pick a lock to the attic and go upstairs to find the
trunk.
In the end, Emily's secret is discovered only after she
dies. Aunt Phoebe's is discovered prior to her death, which she herself
tends to shortly thereafter with half a bottle of sleeping pills.
In his presentation of "Uncle Bill" in the March 1 Erbzine,
Bill Hillman includes a summary at the end from the pen of Irwin Porges,
writing in "Edgar Rice Burroughs: The Man Who Created Tarzan."
Porges is unfair in part of his critique when he says,
"Despite some successful touches of realism, the story becomes merely a
horror incident, the ending anticipated as soon as Bob and Mary discuss
the attic." Well, Faulkner's story does the same darned thing -- more often
and earlier -- with his references to Miss Emily's "deserted lover," the
purchase of the most effective poison possible, and the smell that neighbors
noticed around her house for awhile.
However, Porges is on more solid ground with this statement;
"The viewpoint adopted by Burroughs, with Mary, the narrator, merely summarizing
events, destroys the necessary suspense and of course weakens the characterization.
Aunt Phoebe does not receive the individual development needed to explain
her actions, and since the relationship between her and Uncle Bill is never
established, the reader can conceive of no reason for the murder."
Well, there's at least one possible reason: Aunt Phoebe
is likely just as much of a weirdo as Miss Emily.
Read Uncle Bill at
www.ERBzine.com/mag67/6726.html
Read Doug Denby's Pt. II at
www.ERBzine.com/mag67/6726b.html
