The Jungle/YMMV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Accidental Aesop: The book was intended to highlight the poor treatment of workers in packing plants, but the descriptions of what was going into the nation's food were so disgusting as to cause the passing of the Pure Food and Drug Act.
    • "I aimed at the public's heart, and by accident I hit it in the stomach."
  • Anvilicious: The book pulls no punches in its condemnation of capitalism.
  • High Octane Nightmare Fuel: Little Stanislovas falls asleep in the factory, is locked in, and overnight is eaten alive by rats.
  • Iron Woobie: Jurgis.
  • Nausea Fuel: The descriptions of what was going into the nation's food. Dead rats and injured workers aren't most people's idea of savory.
    • The book states that some of the stuff that went into the meat vats was so bad, it made dead rat look like a trifle in comparison.
  • Some Anvils Need to Be Dropped: The whole reason Upton Sinclair wrote this book. He meant to expose the horrors that workers had to go through because the businessmen and the capitalists had power over them and they were abusing it. However, people were more preoccupied by the fact that EW! someone's finger might have been ground up in their food!
  • Squick: Goes without saying.
  • The Woobie: Jurgis. Would be an Iron Woobie, were it not for the fact that he breaks from the stress and escapes to the countryside.