The Importance Of Survival In Upton Sinclair's The Jungle

In addition, Sinclair’s novel, The Jungle, serves as a metaphor for Chicago in numerous ways. A jungle is described as a “forest or wilderness,” and in the real jungle survival depends on the law of the “survival of the fittest.” This law implies that, to be able to reign in the jungle, you must be the fittest. In the jungle food is scarce and good water is difficult to find. In the “forest or wilderness” there is no ruler or king even though the lion has been called the king of the jungle. In order for the lion or perhaps another particular animal to rule or survive in the “forest or wilderness,” one of them has to be stronger or smarter than the other. In the jungle there are the hunters, who continuously prey on the weakest and they become the hunted. Therefore, during the period Sinclair wrote The Jungle,Chicago’s stockyard district was described in the book as having mountains and valleys and rivers, gullies and ditches, and great hollows which could be compared to a scene in a “forest or wilderness,” but with one exception, these were full of stinking green water. Sinclair describes looking for a job by the inhabitants of the city as hunting for a job to sustain their families with food, housing and clothing, so the people in Chicago underwent the same process as animals in the “forest or wilderness” looking for their prey to sustain themselves. The merchants, real estate brokers, swindlers, prostitutes, saloon keepers, neighbors, and the rival meat-packing industries were always on the prowl for newcomers to prey upon. For instance, in the jungle a lioness has the responsibility to go out and find food for the family while the lion stays in the den and tends to the cubs, so this scenario is similar to Ona’s experience when Jurgis could not work to provide food for their family. …show more content…
For example Sinclair wrote, Ona started to become more and more unglued as time went on, “Ona's eye, and it seemed to him like the eye of a hunted animal; there were broken phrases of anguish and despair now and then, amid her frantic weeping. It was only because he was so numb and beaten himself that Jurgis did not worry more about this. But he never thought of it, except when he was dragged to it and he lived like a dumb beast of burden, knowing only the moment in which he was.” Ona’s behavior continued and worsened and all of this came to a head after she stayed out overnight twice and Jurgis resolved to find out why. Jurgis found out that Ona’s boss had taken advantage of her sexually and all he could think of was to attack as a beast would in defending their young. He went to where Ona worked and pounced on Conner as soon as he saw him with a savagery only equaled to a beast in the jungle. Jurgis attack was described by Sinclair like an animal “losing his prey.” “In a flash he had bent down and sunk his teeth into the man's cheek; and when they tore him away he was dripping with blood, and little ribbons of skin were hanging in his mouth. They got him down upon the floor, clinging to him by his arms and legs, and still they could hardly hold him. He fought like a tiger, writhing and twisting, half flinging them off, and starting again toward his unconscious enemy”. Conner had become the prey just like Ona