information:classification, quality:correction
As metaphor

As a metaphor, jungle often refers to situations that are unruly or lawless, or where the only law is perceived to be "survival of the fittest". This reflects the view of "city people" that forests are such places. Upton Sinclair gave the title The Jungle (1906) to his famous book about the life of workers at the Chicago Stockyards, portraying the workers as being mercilessly exploited with no legal or other lawful recourse.

The term " The Law of the Jungle " is also used in a similar context, drawn from Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book (1894)—though in the society of jungle animals portrayed in that book and obviously meant as a metaphor for human society, that phrase referred to an intricate code of laws which Kipling describes in detail, and not at all to a lawless chaos.

The word "jungle" carries connotations of untamed and uncontrollable nature and isolation from civilisation, along with the emotions that evokes: threat, confusion, powerlessness, disorientation and immobilisation. The change from "jungle" to "rainforest" as the preferred term for describing tropical forests has been a response to an increasing perception of these forests as fragile and spiritual places, a viewpoint not in keeping with the darker connotations of "jungle".

Cultural scholars, especially post-colonial critics, often analyse the jungle within the concept of hierarchical domination and the demand western cultures often places on other cultures to conform to their standards of civilisation. For example: Edward Said notes that the Tarzan depicted by Johnny Weissmuller was a resident of the jungle representing the savage, untamed and wild, yet still a white master of it; and in his essay " An Image of Africa " about Heart of Darkness Nigerian novelist and theorist Chinua Achebe notes how the jungle and Africa become the source of temptation for white European characters like Marlowe and Kurtz.

Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak compared Israel to "a villa in the jungle", a comparison which had been often quoted in Israeli political debates. Barak's critics on the left side of Israeli politics strongly criticised the comparison.