One of the most controversial books of the 20th century was Upton Sinclair’s “The Jungle”. The story follows Jurgis Rudkis, a lithuanian immigrant to a rough but hopeful America, and his family as they endure never ending and merciless trails from a dishonest people and a corrupt system as they try to survive this difficult time.
Jurgis encounters many dishonest people in Chicago many of whom are just trying to survive in their poor conditions. They have to rationalize their wrong doings by their need to survive or even to provide for their own families so that they may survive. Though this shameful trait is missing from Jurgis and his family when we first meet them as they come to America it doesn’t take long for the rough conditions in Chicago, …show more content…
In this case the jungle means a wild, unpredictable, and lawless place where only the strong/those willing to lose their morals in this case, survive and those that don’t die as it is in the novel. The title isn’t the only metaphor, the book is filled with them from the animal going into the slaughterhouse to the rancid smell of fertilizer, even natural things are used as metaphors. The animals before going into the slaughterhouse are very calm hopeful and made to seem optimistic and as they enter the house they keep this attitude at first until they realize what lay in store but by the time they realize this it is too late and they are destined to a terrible fate; This is a metaphor for the hopeful immigrants coming to America to start a new and better lives but once they enter America they are met with a more disastrous fate. Eventually after losing work in the packing plant Jurgis works at a fertilizer mil feeling ill and eventually the smell of fertilizer is stuck on him, this is symbolic for the condition of the city and many of its inhabitants as well as Jurgis and their distasteful/sickening conditions and amount this it is a metaphor for how low Jurgis has come. As mentioned these aren’t the only metaphors there are much more such as the cold of winter being a metaphor for death or the blood red sunset an omen for bad times and encounters ahead in this twisted
Jurgis encounters many dishonest people in Chicago many of whom are just trying to survive in their poor conditions. They have to rationalize their wrong doings by their need to survive or even to provide for their own families so that they may survive. Though this shameful trait is missing from Jurgis and his family when we first meet them as they come to America it doesn’t take long for the rough conditions in Chicago, …show more content…
In this case the jungle means a wild, unpredictable, and lawless place where only the strong/those willing to lose their morals in this case, survive and those that don’t die as it is in the novel. The title isn’t the only metaphor, the book is filled with them from the animal going into the slaughterhouse to the rancid smell of fertilizer, even natural things are used as metaphors. The animals before going into the slaughterhouse are very calm hopeful and made to seem optimistic and as they enter the house they keep this attitude at first until they realize what lay in store but by the time they realize this it is too late and they are destined to a terrible fate; This is a metaphor for the hopeful immigrants coming to America to start a new and better lives but once they enter America they are met with a more disastrous fate. Eventually after losing work in the packing plant Jurgis works at a fertilizer mil feeling ill and eventually the smell of fertilizer is stuck on him, this is symbolic for the condition of the city and many of its inhabitants as well as Jurgis and their distasteful/sickening conditions and amount this it is a metaphor for how low Jurgis has come. As mentioned these aren’t the only metaphors there are much more such as the cold of winter being a metaphor for death or the blood red sunset an omen for bad times and encounters ahead in this twisted