The Concept Of Social Darwinism In The Jungle By Upton Sinclair

In the nineteenth century, scientist Charles Darwin developed his theory of evolution. Darwin stated that in nature, organisms who have favorable traits survive and prosper, and those who do not are left to die. This idea of natural selection and superiority, or “survival of the fittest,” was later applied to society by philosophers. No other piece of writing better demonstrates the concept of social Darwinism than The Jungle by Upton Sinclair. Sinclair’s 1906 political fiction vilifies the nature of the early twentieth century Chicago meat packing industry through vivid imagery and pictorial metaphor. Sinclair wields metaphors against the seemingly impregnable leviathan that is the infinitely small chance of success for the disadvantaged in America. Via metaphor, the packing plant is compared to a machine. The entire operation of the “great packing machine” is filled with “cogs” and from time to time needs “renovating”. Many workers lose their jobs during winter because they are destroyed from their work; they become diseased or maimed and ultimately worthless to the Beef Trust. Just as the teeth of cogs are ground to dust, so are the hopes and dreams, and sometimes even bones and lives of Packingtown workers. Some characters break bones, including the central character Jurgis Rudkus who breaks an ankle in a workplace accident, and some even lose body parts: Stanislovas, a child relative of Jurgis’s, loses use of his knuckles on three fingers; Antanas, Jurgis’s father, has his boots eaten away by acid in the workplace, so much that his toes eventually “drop off”. The machine is quickly renovated, though.

Jurgis and most of his family are hired at the expense of those deemed unfit for the job. Jurgis is employed the quickest of the bunch, as he is young and burly; but even the most efficient of workers face the inevitable. Jurgis, as previously stated, is injured on the killing beds, and is unable to reclaim his job in Packingtown as he “was no longer the finest man in the throng”. The metaphor of most substance, though, is the title itself. The stockyards are a jungle, a vast unknown into which new immigrants are cast. The packing plant is a sordid and merciless place; a place where each worker must look out for themselves and nobody else, just as animals survive in the depths of the jungle. Just as in nature, the jungle teems with life. There is over half of a square mile in the yards dedicated solely to keeping animals for killing.

Powerful metaphors demonstrate the underlying theme of social Darwinism in The Jungle. Sinclair also equips his muckraking novel with eidetic pathos. Evocative imagery is used to show Jurgis and his family’s struggles to survive. Jurgis arrives in America as a strong young man and is shown over the course of the book to wither and deteriorate to almost nothing. Jurgis transforms from a man with “mighty shoulders” wearing a new suit to a “thin and haggard” man with “seedy” clothes. Ona, Jurgis’s wife, also crumbles under the weight of her new American life. In fairness, Ona was never the strongest woman physically, but she was able to bear a child. After struggling to make ends meet with Jurgis in jail, Ona becomes even more fragile and later dies in childbirth. Ona is also frail emotionally: she often bursts into tears for no apparent reason, seeming “helpless as a wounded animal”. Ona is also taken advantage of, as she is not strong enough to stand up for herself, and is forced into prostitution by her boss. Each winter takes more and more life out of the poor in Packingtown, as blizzards and snow drifts force bums into the saloons and often keeps working men at home. A little boy that Stanislovas works with loses his ears to frostbite, and the weather leaves Jurgis “staggering and almost blind” most winter days.

A plethora of vivid sensory images show the odds stacked against Jurgis and his family’s survival. The struggles that Jurgis and his family face in The Jungle demonstrate that in American society, this Lithuanian family of immigrants is not well suited to flourish. Commanding metaphors and powerful imagery are used by Upton Sinclair to demonstrate the family’s poor chances at survival, the perish of many, and early twentieth century social Darwinism.