When Jurgis is first introduced, the narrator provides a description of the protagonist that explains his character as a young man. The simile helps the readers understand Jurgis's simplicity and his unrefined, youthful innocence:
Jurgis was like a boy, a boy from the country. He was the sort of man the bosses like to get hold of, the sort they make it a grievance they cannot get hold of. When he was told to go to a certain place, he would go there on the run.
Comparing Jurgis to a “boy” characterizes him as someone who possesses the innocence, naivety, and simplicity of youth. Unlike the hardened folks of the stockayrds, he’s optimistic and energetic. The comparison also suggests that Jurgis lacks the sophistication and worldliness expected of an adult living in the tough world of Chicago. Through this simile, the narrator implies that Jurgis is easily influenced and manipulated by those in positions of power. He’ll go anywhere he is told “on the run” without questioning the order.
This use of simile also highlights Jurgis's rural background, emphasizing his connection to the countryside and his as-yet unspoiled character. It’s also a reference to the idea of the “old country,” a phrase used by immigrant communities to refer to the places from which they originally came. This reinforces the contrast between Jurgis, a new immigrant, and the urban, industrial environment in which he finds himself.
As Jurgis and his family arrive in Packingtown, the narrator uses auditory imagery and a simile of buzzing swarms to describe their first impressions of the place:
Then the party became aware of another strange thing. This, too, like the color, was a thing elemental; it was a sound, a sound made up of ten thousand little sounds. You scarcely noticed it at first—it sunk into your consciousness, a vague disturbance, a trouble. It was like the murmuring of the bees in the spring, the whisperings of the forest; it suggested endless activity, the rumblings of a world in motion.
The author employs vivid sensory language to depict the Lithuanian family’s first auditory experience of the stockyards and Packingtown. The ambient sounds they encounter are described as "a thing elemental," emphasizing their power and the impossibility of comparing them to anything else. The auditory environment is so unlike anything they have encountered that it defies description. The use of imagery allows readers to imagine the immersive effect of these sounds on the characters. They hear Packingtown before they see it or smell it.
The simile comparing the sound to "the murmuring of the bees in the spring, the whisperings of the forest" also enhances the sensory experience of the passage for the reader. This large group of Lithuanian immigrants are country people: they’ve never encountered an industrial hub like this, and so their only point of comparison are sounds from the natural world. These natural images also refer to “endless activity” and the “rumblings” of large groups of things at work. Packingtown is always operating, like a beehive or a forest. The imagery of the sound “sinking into” the characters’ consciousness and creating a “vague disturbance” evokes a sense of unease. The sounds, even from this distance, are not a pleasant hum of activity. They are—at this early point—a flood of overwhelming size and unknown origin.
Jurgis's panic intensifies with his family's descent into poverty due to his workplace accident and the brutal winter. The narrator employs hyperbolic language and a simile that compares fear to a grasping hand to convey the overwhelming fear and despair that consume him:
The thought of this was like an icy hand at his heart; the thought that here, in this ghastly home of all horror, he and all those who were dear to him might lie and perish of starvation and cold, and there would be no ear to hear their cry, no hand to help them!
The simile in this passage compares Jurgis's fear to an "icy hand" gripping his heart. The comparison gives a chilling and paralyzing effect, as if his heart’s muscles are literally being held still. It intensifies the emotional impact of his panic and emphasizes the magnitude of his terror.
This language is hyperbolic, as his heart isn’t really being stopped. However, the intensity of the language here further amplifies Jurgis's desperation. Through it, Sinclair suggests that his family’s potential fate of freezing and starving is the epitome of horror and hopelessness.
The vivid simile and exaggerated description communicate the all-consuming nature of Jurgis's anxiety. They also highlight the immense weight of his family's dire circumstances. Although it seems melodramatic to predict that there will be “no ear to hear their cry, no hand to help them,” this isn’t actually very far from their eventual reality. This passage underscores the precariousness of their plight and the sense of powerlessness that engulfs Sinclair’s protagonist.
The narrator vividly describes Jurgis's observation of a child working metal at a steelworks factory. In this passage, Sinclair uses a simile and the sensory language of sound to compare the metallic ringing of steelworking to that of a train speeding through the dark:
The sounds of the bits of steel striking upon each other was like the music of an express train as one hears it in a sleeping car at night.
The “music of an express train,” as Sinclair describes it, is an unusually romantic form of auditory imagery in The Jungle. The language of this passage implies that Jurgis feels a sense of freedom and hope when he hears the sounds of steel production. It’s the opposite of the claustrophobic, nauseating atmosphere of the fertilizer plant and the stockyards. It recalls the initial hopefulness of the Lithuanian family’s journey to America, and it seems far away from the grim reality of Chicago.
At the beginning of his time at the steelworks, Jurgis is genuinely hopeful for a new beginning. The simile points to his dream for a better future with this new career, even in a cacophonously loud and dangerous industrial environment. The simile of the steel sounds as the train's "music" invokes both the aggressive nature of the work and the rhythmic quality of the sounds of production. Of course, Jurgis's tenure at the steel mill is very short-lived as it soon closes for business, but it's the only entirely happy workplace environment he experiences in the entire novel.
When he unwittingly stumbles into an event that turns out to be a socialist rally, Jurgis is captivated by the presence of the speaker. The narrator compares the man's presence to forceful events in the natural world through a series of similes. Jurgis, watching the speech, thinks to himself:
What sort of a man was he? And what sort of thing was this, anyhow?—So all at once it occurred to Jurgis to look at the speaker. It was like coming suddenly upon some wild sight of nature—a mountain forest lashed by a tempest, a ship tossed about upon a stormy sea.
The simile employed here emphasizes the power and intensity of the speaker's presence, as he whips the crowd into a frenzy of excitement. Jurgis likens the speaker’s effect to encountering a wild and awe-inspiring sight in nature, such as a mountain forest lashed by a storm or a ship "tossed about upon a stormy sea." The language of "lashing" and "tossing" in the simile echoes the passionate energy that resonates from the speaker. It also evokes the response of the crowd for the reader, as the speaker's "tempest" moves and sways them. This comparison conveys the overwhelming impact of the speaker's words and the immense influence they wield over Jurgis and the rest of the audience.
