Summary Of The Jungle By Upton Sinclair

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The Jungle by Upton Sinclair is a book that shows social darwinism. Social darwinism is shown in the book when Jurgis breaks his shoulder working in the steel factory and he has to stay at home to get better, but when he goes back to work they already have someone else in his place already. So Jurgis has to go around town looking for a new job but no one will hire him because he’s blacklisted. Other themes in the book are capitalism and socialism. Capitalism has driven people to do terrible things in order to survive. Capitalism is when a company has a new product out and you buy it and that same company makes a profit. The problem with capitalism is that it is not overlooked like it should be. An example of capitalism is how bad the working …show more content…

There are many metaphors in the story that the animalistic nature shows such as when Jurgis finds out what Conner did to Ona he gets mad and not only does he beat him but he takes a bite out of his cheek. In the book it said it took half a dozen men to pull him off of Conner. When the men finally got him to the floor they had to hold him by his arms and legs, hardly being able to hold him as he fought like a tiger to get free. Another metaphor is the meat in the packing houses. It may look good on the outside but what's in the inside is bad just like america. When Jurgis first came to america they thought it would be better than where they use lived but it was way worse. The last metaphor is when Marija had enough money to actually be able to put it in the bank. Later she found out the bank had ran out of money so she thought she would lose it all so she and the other people of packingtown went and withdrew all of her money. Marija was so worried she was going to lose all of her money that she sewed it into her jacket pockets, only for her to get stuck in the mud. This shows that marija valued her money more than her own life. However because of how greedy everyone is with their money they won't be able to be high class or