A marooned couple perish in a tropical jungle, leaving an orphaned infant who is adopted and reared by apes; he develops extraordinary physical skills and animal cunning, later encountering other humans and learning language and reading from stranded artifacts, which confront him with questions of identity and civilization. Confrontations with hunters, rival tribes, and distant settlements test his loyalties. The narrative traces his struggle between inherited social status and the primitive world that forged him, exploring themes of nature versus nurture, the emergence of reason, and the costs and contradictions of contact between jungle life and modern society.