In The Jungle, a novel written by Upton Sinclair, Sinclair aims to idealize the socialist Party’s objectives and methods among Americans. However, most Americans over-looked this fact and simply saw The Jungle as a novel exposing the horrid realities of the meat packing industry. Sinclair successfully managed to improve the meat packing industry in Chicago, but never got his point across to the public (socialism was better than capitalism). Despite the issue at hand, Sinclair’s novel demonstrates a clear distaste for capitalism and the title of the novel reflects upon this. One of the areas in which capitalism is denounced is through the large corporations such as the meat packing industry and a few others.
Politics is another region of the novel where Sinclair attempts to dissuade Americans from following capitalism and hopes to have people join the “better” socialist party. Finally, The Jungle is full of symbolism that subtly censures capitalism, or at least, tries to. Upton Sinclair displays the role that large corporations played in the lives of Jurgis and his family and uses this to denounce capitalism. “The agent was most polite, and explained that that was the usual formula; that it was always arranged that the property should be merely rented” (Sinclair 63).
Here, Sinclair makes it clear that Jurgis and his family have been fooled. The house they thought they had purchased is not truly theirs, but they merely rent it; the salesman did this in order to make it easier to evict families if there payments were ever late. Sinclair is arguing that capitalists cheat people in situations such as this to further their own personal gain. Furthermore, big businesses, like real-estate agencies, attack the weak and uneducated who do not fully understand the process they are going through. “Then he began to- to make love to me. […] Then he threatened me. He knew your boss- he knew Marija’s. He would hound us to death” (Sinclair 181). In this situation, Ona was being raped by her boss Phil Connor.
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Not only is this another example of personal gain through capitalism, but it is also an example of the separation of social classes because of capitalism. Since the bosses of the field workers in the meat packing industry were so much richer, they were also much more powerful. They could easily blacklist workers so that they could never work in the industry again. This is precisely how Ona was threatened and she knew there was no way to overcome it. The title, The Jungle, represents how difficult it was to live an industrial life. Not only were most of the people below the poverty line, they were also in constant danger. The danger being: getting killed in an accident at work, becoming infected with an illness or dying of starvation.
It was survival of the fittest, just like a real jungle. Throughout the novel, the politics of capitalist society are castigated and those of the socialist party are eulogized. “At the last election the Republicans had paid four dollars a vote to the Democrats’ three” (Sinclair 308). Sinclair is trying to depict the capitalist politicians as characters of low integrity. Both parties bought votes with money in order to get elected to office; not only is this cheating, but it is also a sign of a corrupt politician. In general, Sinclair viewed capitalist politicians as corrupt government officials. “It was the new religion of humanity [socialism]–or you might say it was the fulfillment of the old religion, since it implied but the literal application of all the teachings of Christ” (Sinclair 375).
Here, Sinclair is stating that socialism was literally meant to replace Christianity as a religion. Sinclair said that socialism fulfilled all the mandates that Christianity presented. Not only is he trying to persuade people into believing that socialism is superior to capitalism, which he described as having two distinct classes (a small one consisting of the rich and a larger one of ignorant peasants), but he is glorifying socialism (Sinclair 372). As for the title, The Jungle, in politics refers to the underground dark side of politics; where underhanded methods are used to further the career of politicians. Jurgis managed to involve himself in this jungle of politics when he helped buy votes for a democratic politician.
This underground world can be considered a jungle because of the sneaky people involved in it, just like a jungle with sneaky animals hunting the weak. Sinclair cleverly uses symbolism to engender the rise of the socialist party and to attack capitalism. “One could not stand and watch very long without becoming philosophical, without beginning to deal in symbols and similes, and to hear the hog-squeal of the universe. […] Perhaps some glimpse of all this was in the thoughts of our humble-minded Jurgis” (Sinclair 45). This full quote details the slaughtering of hogs and how the hogs had only lived for themselves and never committed any wrong-doings, but there was no telling whether they would live on in the afterlife or not.
The hogs represent the masses of immigrants, just like Jurgis, who have come to America aspiring to live the American dream. The American dream being: having a successful career, making high wages and living comfortably. However, the hogs were killed and just like them, the immigrants would not survive. Therefore, the American dream was almost impossible to reach. The immigrants never found jobs or if they did, they made little money. It did not matter what they did because they would always be held down by the upper capitalist class. This is just how the hogs were being killed to benefit this upper class. “Their home! Their home! They had lost it!” (Sinclair 213).
The home of one was symbolic of family and the fact that they had managed to realize the American dream. As Jurgis came to realize, after he was released from jail, that his family had been evicted he also saw the only bit of the American dream which he had ever touched, vanish. The capitalistic society in which he lives had only lied to him and so easily destroyed his dreams. In this way, Sinclair demonstrates that the upper capitalist class would do anything to keep the poverty stricken class at the bottom. Now, the title in itself is also symbolic. It symbolizes the Social Darwinism in play during these times. Social Darwinism was the theory of survival of the fittest applied to society.
In this modern jungle of industrialism, only the fittest or in other terms, the rich, survived and prospered. The Jungle was Upton Sinclair’s most powerful novel and elicited much needed change in the meat packing industry. In contrast to this, the novel was truly an attack launched on the United States’ capitalistic society and a plea for Socialism. In the novel, Sinclair offered various perspectives on where and how capitalism affected the people and society. He also appropriately titled his novel to fit his views. One manner in which he did this was by exposing the capitalist acts of large corporations like the meat packing industry. Also Sinclair attacked capitalism through the corrupt politics of the time in which the book was set. Finally, Sinclair used much symbolism in attacking capitalism in mainstream society.
