The metaphor recalls the "law of the jungle" where survival by all and any means is what controls behavior. It is also a metaphor for the city, where things are impersonal, people do not get to know each other, and live is generally hard, to say the least. Jurgis, the main character, comes to the city a healthy young man, willing to work, to do what he has to so that his family will have a good life. Instead of the chance to realize the financial dream of America, he meets totally intolerable work conditions in the slaughter house, gets laid off when business is slow, sees his wife raped, assaults the man who raped her and goes to jail, gets out of jail time to see his wife die in childbirth, sees his son drowned in a street flood ... well, you get the picture and can get additional examples at the enote site below
Since Capitalism is presented as a jungle where the economically weak have little chance at success, it is no surprise that, at the end of the book, we find Jurgis looking to socialism for answers. This provides an interesting link to today where we seem to be electing socialism as an answer to our economic "jungle."
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