Sinclair also employsmetaphors, comparisons that do not use the words "like" or "as":

The gates of memory would roll open—old joys would stretch out their arms to them, old hopes and dreams would call to them, and they would stir beneath the burden that lay upon them, and feel its forever immeasurable weight.

Memory is compared to a gate rolling open, while old joys are compared to arms stretching out. Misery is compared to a literal burden weighing on people.

Sinclair also uses assonance, which is using words that begin with the same vowel close together:

anguish would seize them, more dreadful than the agony of death

"Anguish" and "agony" both begin with "a," and the repeated letter puts emphasis on these two important words.

There is much figurative language in this novel. At Ona and Jurgis's wedding, for example, Ona is described wearing clothes and decorations that symbolize her innocence and purity—especially through the color white. Through her flowers, she is connected to nature. Green is a color that stands for youth, and her youth is symbolized by the bright green rose leaves:

She wore a muslin dress, conspicuously white, and a stiff little veil coming to her shoulders. There were five pink paper roses twisted in the veil, and eleven bright green rose leaves. There were new white cotton gloves upon her hands, and as she stood staring about her she twisted them together feverishly.

Also at Jurgis and Ona's wedding, one of the musicians is described as:

a Slovak, a tall, gaunt man with black-rimmed spectacles and the mute and patient look of an overdriven mule; he responds to the whip but feebly, and then always falls back into his old rut.

In this quote above, the Slovak violinist is compared to a mule in an extended metaphor—he is overdriven like a mule, responds to the whip feebly, then falls back into a rut like a mule. This kind of figurative language comparing men to animals and vice versa occurs frequently in this novel, as one of Sinclair's main points is that working people are treated as no more than animals by a rapacious capitalist class. In a famous passage, the fate of the hogs going to their deaths in a Chicago slaughterhouse is personified so that they seem exactly like people:

Each of them had an individuality of his own, a will of his own, a hope and a heart's desire; each was full of self-confidence, of self-importance, and a sense of dignity. And trusting and strong in faith he had gone about his business, the while a black shadow hung over him, and a horrid Fate in his pathway. Now suddenly it had swooped upon him, and had seized him by the leg. Relentless, remorseless, all his protests, his screams were nothing to it.

Like a person, each hog going to slaughter is depicted as an individual, with will, hopes, desires, self-confidence, and dignity—all traits we associate with human beings. Fate, in a metaphor, is compared to a bird of prey that swoops and seizes on the hog. This emphasizes the dehumanization of the industrial system, which grinds up all living creatures in its path.

The Jungle by Upton Sinclair is a graphic novel.  Sinclair does a great job expressing to the reader the utter brutality and horrific living conditions within the slums of the novel.  The struggles of the characters are described in vivid details that cause emotional responses to the text.

One way that Sinclair is able to do that is through personification.  The following quote is a good example.  

"Jurgis could see all the truth now -- could see himself, through the whole long course of events, the victim of ravenous vultures that had torn into his vitals and devoured him; of fiends that had racked and tortured him, mocking him, meantime, jeering in his face. ...And they could do nothing, they were tied hand and foot -- the law was against them, the whole machinery of society was at their oppressors' command!"

The quote takes a social construct, business or government, and personifies in a way that makes it feel as if the business structure is a living creature that is actually trying to torture and mock Jurgis.  Obviously a corporation can't do that, but Jurgis is responding to his plight as if a single "bad guy" is making his life miserable.  

The following quote works well too: 

"Now and then a visitor wept, to be sure; but this slaughtering machine ran on, visitors or no visitors. It was like some horrible crime committed in a dungeon, all unseen and unheeded, buried out of sight and of memory."

It's a combination of personification and a simile.  Machines don't run, but in the quote they do.  The simile is comparing the packing industry to medieval dungeons, which were not known for being nice. 

In looking at figurative language in any work, the critical element is finding examples of text that means more than what is on the page.  Sinclair is deliberate in his attempts when writing The Jungle.  He understands the implications of what he is writing and what he wishes from it.  As a result, there are distinct example of figurative language employed in the text.

One example of figurative language is evident when Sinclair describes the hopes and dreams of immigrants that come to the United States in search of a better life.  This dream extends to the people their families, as well.  Sinclair articulates the way in which Jurgis initially views Packingtown and its promise of work:  

 All the sordid suggestions of the place were gone—in the twilight it was a vision of power. To the two who stood watching while the darkness swallowed it up, it seemed a dream of wonder, with its talc of human energy, of things being done, of employment for thousands upon thousands of men, of opportunity and freedom, of life and love and joy.

The figurative language in describing Packingtown with its" dream of wonder" and "its talc of human energy" are ways in which figurative language is used to capture the sensibilities of the immigrant.  Jurgis comes to America and does so filled to the brim with hope and aspiration.  It is with this sense of promise and possibility that he views America, and specifically, life in Packingtown.  An extension of this comes when Sinclair, as narrator applies this vision to all immigrants:  "So America was a place of which lovers and young people dreamed. If one could only manage to get the price of a passage, he could count his troubles at an end."  In comparing America to a voyage in which one needed to pay "the price of a passage," Sinclair is able to effectively add another dimension to the equally figurative idea that in America, "the streets are paved with gold."

As bad as it was for the men in Packingtown, Sinclair writes about the far greater difficulties that women had to face.  Sinclair's  use of figurative language is effective in conveying this idea:

Here was a population, low-class and mostly foreign, hanging always on the verge of starvation, and dependent for its opportunities of life upon the whim of men every bit as brutal and unscrupulous as the old-time slave-drivers; under such circumstances immorality was exactly as inevitable, and as prevalent, as it was under the system of chattel slavery.

The invoking of "chattel slavery" is figurative.  The 13th Amendment had abolished slavery.  Legally, it did not exist.  However, the use of figurative language is deliberate in articulating the condition that women faced.  It was not actual and literal slavery, but its effects were much the same. Sinclair uses figurative language to detail how the conditions that many men and women experienced in America was worse than slavery because it came as a complete surprise to them.  The use of figurative language in describing the lives of pain and suffering that immigrants experience heightens the experience for the reader, confirming again that Sinclair really did strive to hit the "public's heart."

Finally, the truth about life in America emerges to Jurgis.  Sinclair seizes this moment to use figurative language in amplifying the experience:

Jurgis could see all the truth now -- could see himself, through the whole long course of events, the victim of ravenous vultures that had torn into his vitals and devoured him; of fiends that had racked and tortured him, mocking him, meantime, jeering in his face. ...And they could do nothing, they were tied hand and foot -- the law was against them, the whole machinery of society was at their oppressors' command!

The figurative language employed crystallizes Jurgis's experience.  Being "the victim of ravenous vultures" and experienced being "devoured" while "the machinery of society" is poised against people like Jurgis are examples of how specific language is figuratively employed.  Its usage is deliberate.  In being able to articulate this type of reality, Sinclair is able to convey why the need to change things is so profound in Jurgis' life and the reader's. Sinclair is able to articulate the need for transformation through the use of figurative language.

In his novel The Jungle, Upton Sinclair invites readers to feel empathy with his characters, to put themselves in the position of those characters and reflect on how they would respond to the great hardships Jurgis and his family face every day. Sinclair also uses a variety of figurative language to make his tale more vividly descriptive. Let's look at these elements in more detail.

Empathy may be defined as understanding and sharing the feelings of another person. Sinclair invites us to share in his characters' pain, fear, horror, despair, grief, and anger by giving us a dramatic description of their lives and their hardships. We join in their grief when Dede Antanas dies after contracting consumption by working in a cold, wet environment. We feel Jurgis's frustration and anger when he must stay home following an injury on the job and see his family struggling to get enough money. We understand why Jurgis attacks his wife's boss when the man seduces her that she might keep her job. The horror is more than Jurgis can bear. We enter into Jurgis's despair when Ona dies in childbirth and when the family loses their house. Sinclair describes all of this so vividly that we cannot help but feel what the characters are feeling.

As for figurative language, let's identify a few examples. Sinclair uses symbolism, for instance, when he describes Ona's clothing, her white muslin dress (indicating her purity and innocence) and the paper roses and leaves showing her connection to nature that is severed when she goes to live in the city (notice that the roses and leaves must be paper). Sinclair uses personification when he talks about the pigs in the slaughterhouse, giving them human traits like confidence and dignity to show how horrible their fate is.

Further, Sinclair employs hyperbole when he speaks of how the rain slices Jurgis to the bone. He uses simile, too, when he says that men are fighting like wild beasts. He puts in metaphor when he speaks of memory as an open gate that allows joys, hopes, and dreams to come back to the characters.