Welcome to the JungleNot once in Upton Sinclair's The Jungle does the author refer to the title in the text, but its meaning is profound rooted in writing. According to Merriam-Webster, a jungle is defined as “a confusing or disordered mass of objects, something that bewilders or frustrates by its intricate or complex character; a place of ruthless struggle for survival”. At the beginning of the twentieth century, the Packingtown area of Chicago perfectly embodied a jungle. Hunger, conditions, and the sheer scale of the devastation demonstrate organized chaos at its height, as animalistic behavior intertwines with physical needs in the filth of Chicago's stockyards. Sooner or later, this hunger reaches many of the main characters and they turn to immoral activities to survive. Sinclair highlights this with an abundance of metaphors that include personification and the breakdown of human choices into primal actions. In this book, the jungle is not a literal jungle, but a struggle for survival in the capitalist pyramid. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay In the packinghouses, Sinclair describes the pigs on their way to the slaughterhouse in an almost disturbing way: "You couldn't stand by for long without being philosophical, without starting to concern yourself with symbols and similes, and hearing the pig cry of the universe... Each of them had their own individuality, their own will, their own hope and heartfelt desire; each was full of self-confidence, self-importance and a sense of dignity. And confident and strong in faith he had gone about his business, while a black shadow loomed over him and a hideous Fate in his path. Now suddenly it had fallen upon him and seized him by the leg. Relentless, merciless, all his protests, her screams were nothing. She did her cruel will with him, as if her desires, her feelings, simply did not exist at all; she cut his throat and watched him gasp for his life” (Sinclair 31). that Sinclair paints with these words is not typical of city life; instead it reveals the true ferocity and relentlessness of the people of Chicago and the city itself. This quote flawlessly takes the lives of workers and condenses it into a few sentences, summing up one thing: nothing is safe in this city. Jobs, money, a place to live, and even a life can be taken away in an instant. By taking this sense of constant fear and attributing it to something as naive and innocent as a pig, Sinclair perfectly captures the emotions and feelings of those arriving in America for the first time. Sinclair also notices these wild instincts in places off-world. the packing houses: “Here was Durham's, for example, owned by a man who was trying to make as much money out of it as he could, and didn't care in the least how he did it; and below him, arranged in ranks and grades like an army, were managers, superintendents, and foremen, each leading the man immediately beneath him and trying to squeeze as much work out of him as possible. And all men of the same rank were set against each other; each man's accounts were kept separately, and each man lived in terror of losing his place if another made a better record than he. So from top to bottom the place was simply a seething cauldron of jealousies and hatreds; there was no loyalty or decency in it, there was no place where a man counted for anything over a dollar. And worse than there was no decency, there wasn't even honesty. The reason? Who could say?.
tags