Toward the end of The Jungle, when Jurgis stumbles into the socialist meeting that later changes his life, many critics complain that his transformation is too swift, too sudden, too unbelievable. Yet, that evangelical, emotional, immediate conversion is exactly what Upton Sinclair intended. Jurgis is able to accept immediately what he hears and to convert fully to this new line of thinking because he has already followed a pattern of believing in things and having these things betray him. By the time Jurgis converts to socialism at the end of The Jungle, he has no other options. He has been longing for someone or something to provide him with answers to what is wrong with the world. He is unable to follow Marija's acceptance of the way of the world, but has nothing to counter her arguments until he finds the rhetoric of socialism. Although Jurgis does not pray, socialism is the answer to his prayers.
It is no coincidence that Sinclair mentions Dante in Chapter 9. In The Divine Comedy, Dante's masterpiece, readers join the poet's quest for salvation. Dante's Comedy, like The Jungle, begins in despair and ends in bliss, takes a realistic view of human nature, and is written in practical and not poetic language (Italian not Latin). The Comedy is a journey through the land of the dead, and similarly, Jurgis journeys through the hell of the industrialized urban jungle. Both The Comedy and The Jungle are meant to be read on both literal and allegorical levels, as poet and packer both search for salvation. At the end of their journeys, Dante and Jurgis find paradise, Dante's in heaven and Jurgis' in socialism.
