The Jungle by Upton Sinclair seems to have several themes or purposes buried in it. There is the humanity aspect of the Jungle, with people trying to assimilate and find their purpose in the world. Secondly, there is the social aspect of the book, where the author criticizes the world in which he lives. In The Jungle, Sinclair criticizes the factories and the conditions they implemented upon the lowly working class immigrants who worked the machines. This theme is dark and enlightening. It opens the reader’s eyes to the troubles that the immigrants who built this nation had to face and it is at no time a happy experience. Sinclair’s final purpose in writing the Jungle goes back to his own feelings regarding socialism. The Jungle appears to be a form of propaganda praising socialism.
In the Jungle, the main characters come from a socialist country, Lithuania, with hopes of a better life in a capitalist country (the U.S.). However, upon seeing what capitalism has to offer them, they long for the simple structure that their old life gave them. When one of them tries to adapt to capitalism, Marija, she finds that her efforts are in vain and burdened from the beginning. Such a situation is comparable to the one in present day Russia. A once socialist people is quickly adapted to a capitalist system which has less control than their earlier system had. One tries to adapt the people to the system (Boris Yeltsin), but finds that he is slowly losing the control of the system after only eight years. And finally, as shown in The Jungle, the people are starting to desire to return to their previous way of life. The Russians still hold onto the aspects of the past (thousands still visit Lenin’s grave), and soon enough the Communist party (still big and strong) may win a free election. The novel illustrates what is actually occurring in the world today. The adjusted socialist nations are having difficulty adapting to their new way of life just as the new family in America is having trouble adjusting to the way of life in the American factory lands.
One other question of this novel is what exactly is the “jungle”. The jungle could be a reference to the jumble and chaos that the factories created for all who live in it. With all of the different buildings and smoke and trash and people, the factory land may physically appears as a jungle. Although more likely, the jungle is actually a term that refers to the feeling of confusion and loss that the immigrants felt upon arriving at America. Just as an explorer in a jungle feels lost and must fend for himself, an immigrant in America, in the factory yards, must fend for himself and develops a feeling of loss. This most likely is the meaning of the “jungle”.