Scene One

George Garga is working in Maynes' Lending Library in Chicago in 1912. Shlink and Skinny enter and want to borrow a book, any book. Garga gives them his opinion two books and Shlink, instead of accepting his opinion, tries to buy it from him for a significant amount of money. Garga refuses to sell them his opinion but Shlink cleverly ups the offer. When Garga again refuses, even after admitting that his family is living on rotten fish and that three of them sleep in one room, Shlink declares war on him.

Maynes enters the shop and Skinny immediately points out Garga' messy shirt. Maynes yells at his employee for looking dirty. Shlink then advises Garga to go to Tahiti, a place where Garga has always dreamed to going. When Garga sarcastically thanks him and tells him that he will have his sister say a prayer for Shlink, Shlink remarks that she has nothing better to do since she keeps turning down Manky's love for her. Garga is offended that Shlink knows all about his private life and asks Maynes to kick them out of the shop.

Finnay (The Worm) walks in and starts to beat up the books, claiming that everything in them is lies. Maynes is dismayed at the damage and orders Garga to call the police. Garga is starting to believe that all the men in the shop are out to get him. The Baboon (Collie Couch) enters accompanied by Jane Larry, Garga's girlfriend. Garga sees her and realizes that she is drunk; he her to go home. The other men start destroying the books and Maynes informs Garga that if they do not stop then he is fired.

Jane sits down on The Baboon's lap and the pimp tells George that her body is worth a few dollars. The other men laugh at Garga, who offers to take her away and live with her. She tells him it is too late. Shlink doubles his offer to Garga one more time, causing even Maynes to tell Garga to accept it. Garga instead refuses, and is immediately fired. He bursts into a rage and yells at them that his ability to reject their financial offer is freedom. He strips his clothes and runs away. Shlink laughingly pays Maynes for the destroyed books and the clothes.

Analysis

A fundamental concept in Jungle of Cities is the desire to pierce the "thick" skin that people wear. This skin prevents people from being able to feel emotion for others. Brecht's belief is that only strong emotions, such as hatred and anger, are able to puncture through the skin and bring the individual to a state of intense emotional rapture. This is what Shlink is trying to accomplish in this first round of the duel. Garga has a thick skin for most of the scene, initially telling Jane to go out with The Baboon again. The Baboon says to him, "Hey, that's a bit thick." Garga's inability to feel emotion is cracked by the end of the scene. It results in a poetic outpouring of emotion that causes the other men to burst into applause. Skinny says, "So we finally got him to shed his skin: let's take it along."

Shlink cleverly attacks Garga on the one thing that Garga cannot yield: freedom of ideas. Rather than change his mind by selling his opinion, Garga is willing to resist the money and even start a fight to the death for his right to choose whom he gives his opinions to. Brecht associates him with the prairie man, identified as the Western cowboy, defending his freedom of choice. Thus the right to an opinion is worth far more than money to Garga.

The association of opinions with the prairie makes the reader realize the the city is a jungle that makes people conform. Skinny tells Garga: "So you have opinions. Well, that's because you don't know about life." Opinions are not acceptable in a society that demands conformity; Shlink takes advantage of this fact to see if Garga will fight him (and consequently society) or yield to the financial allures of capitalism.

An interesting moment occurs when Garga offers to sell Shlink other men's ideas. This is a world where money is able to buy everything, including opinions. In such a world there cannot be freedom because everything is has a pre-determined price. Brecht uses this moment to allude to his own sources for inspiration: "I'll sell you the opinions of Mr. V. Jensen and Mr. Arthur Rimbaud, but I won't sell you my own opinion." This hidden reference sets up the conflict of the play; it also begs the reader to conceive of Garga and Shlink as Paul Verlaine and Arthur Rimbaud. Thus the fight will be a fight for ideological freedom and a fight for the release of emotional tension.

Scene Two

Several weeks later Garga goes to Shlink's office at the lumber yard. Shlink is pleased to see him, but Garga becomes furious when he sees his sister working there. He orders her to go home. Garga then informs Shlink that he accepts the challenge to a fight, and that he does not even care about the reasons. All he cares about is the fact that Shlink thinks he is the tougher man. In order to make the fight more equal, Shlink gives Garga his house and his lumber yard, promising to become Garga's servant.

Garga immediately orders Skinny to sell a pile of logs twice, making an illegal deal so that someone will eventually have to go to jail. Skinny, The Worm, and The Baboon all object to this, but Shlink orders them to do it. Garga then takes the lumber yard's transaction ledger and makes Skinny pour ink all over it. He orders them to stop the sawmill and then makes Shlink fire Skinny. Marie tells him that he is acting irrationally and that he is not treating the men very well. Garga explains that he does not understand what Shlink is doing, but that he will do his best to destroy Shlink. Both Shlink and Garga exit.

Skinny complains about being fired so easily. He then tells Marie that he has fallen in love with her. Skinny offers The Worm and The Baboon money to buy Marie. She is incensed and calls out for Shlink to help her. He tells her that she would be better off with Skinny since he at least loves her. Garga laughingly enters the room and comments that now they are auctioning off flesh.

Hearing a Salvation Army band in the street, Garga calls to them and asks them to enter. He offers to give them the house as a donation if the Salvation Army Officer allows him to spit in his face. The Officer at first says he is not permitted to do that, but then recants and allows it. Garga orders Shlink to spit on the man, which he does.

Having had his joke ruined, Garga takes some of the money and plans to go to Tahiti. Marie tells him that he is selling out and fighting her in the process. She says he can go and that she will manage on her own. Garga remarks that she will care for the family by becoming a whore.

Analysis

This second round of the duel is focused on both making the fight more equal and on the eventual destruction of Shlink. Shlink realizes that money gets in the way of emotions by causing people to suppress them. His reason for giving everything to Garga is to force them both to try to destroy each other without any inhibitions or unequal means. Garga immediately accepts this challenge, and destroys first the business through an illegal transaction and gives away the house by making Shlink spit on the Salvation Army Officer.

Part of the focus of the play is to make the reader aware that money destroys emotions by forcing people to suppress them. The Salvation Army Officer sells his virtue and honor for the deed to the house. Brecht makes him shake his fist after being spat on and cry "Forgive me", but he does not try to revenge the act. This contrast him with Garga who would never accept this kind of treatment merely for money.

One of the hidden themes of this play is to serve as a religious parable. Shlink is a lumberman, analogous to Jesus the carpenter. In this scene he is betrayed by Garga, who functions as a Judas throughout Jungle of Cities. The parallels continue until the very end of the play, where Garga will triumph over Shlink.

Scene Three

Back at Garga's house his mother, father, and Manky are discussing what they have heard concerning his disappearance. When Garga arrives home his father is pleased because it means that they will have money to eat out again. His mother asks him if he is in trouble, and he explains that he is caught in the fight with another man who has given up everything in order to continue the fight. He explains that in order to escape the fight he would have to be free, but since he has already been "sold" into a position in society, he is not.

Garga's mother wonders what has happened to his sister, but he will not tell her. Garga informs her he is moving South and leaves. The Worm enters and tells the father that Marie is living in a Chinese hotel. He insinuates that she is a prostitute and is so active that the hotel is getting a bad reputation. He asks the father to come and take her away but fails to reveal the exact location of the hotel.

Shlink arrives and The Worm exits the house. Shlink asks the father if he could board there as a guest. He even offers to become the new family breadwinner since Garga has now moved away. John considers the proposal and accepts it. Mae (Mrs. Garga) enters and also agrees to have Shlink stay with them.

Analysis

Garga provides one of the reasons for why Shlink is willing to give up his lumberyard and house when he states, "He'll find he's already been consecrated, paid for, stamped and sold at a good price, so he isn't even free to go and drown himself." This description of mankind implies that man gets trapped in the fiscal world of capitalism and is unable to free himself from the daily pricing of everything, including even opinions. Shlink must give away everything in order to achieve his goal of being able to experience the world without the constraints that money places on him.

The duel can be interpreted as an attempt by Shlink to get to where Garga already is; Shlink envies Garga's ability to refuse to sell his opinion in a world were everything is bought or sold, including women, sex, family, and love. The other side of this duel is Shlink's attempt to remove Garga's freedom by saddling him with money and property. Garga is seen rejecting this throughout, even to the point of rejecting his family in order to maintain his freedom.Shlink moves in with Garga's family in an attempt to capture the freedom that Garga has; it also serves to complete the replacement of Shlink with Garga and Garga with Shlink.

Brecht frequently refers to both sex and food as base necessities that drive humans into contact with each other. Notice what The Worm says about what Marie is doing at the hotel: "Nothing, or, just eating." We know that she is really a prostitute and that she is lying in bed all day. This conflation of food and sex serves to separate the characters who need them from those who do not. When moving into the Garga home, Shlink comments that he could survive on flintstones if necessary. He has already dispensed with food as a means of survival.

The difference between John Garga and George Garga is highlighted here when John accepts Shlink into his house because he needs the money. He says, "You can't fill your belly with reasonings, you know." Again, food is brought up as a negative aspect of human existence that leads a person to allow even the sanctity of his home to be violated. Both food and prostitution are similar in that people sacrifice their freedom for them.

Scene Four

Shlink has moved into the Chinese Hotel with Marie. He is still paying the Garga family but no longer lives there. Skinny learns from The Baboon that Garga cleared out to Tahiti and left Shlink to go to jail for double selling the same lot of timber.

They overhear Marie and Shlink talking. Marie tells him she loves him, but he claims that he cannot love her. He argues that his skin has gotten so thick that he can no longer emit emotions. Marie asks him how he got like this, and he explains that he became so thick skinned while on the Yangtze River. A man used to walk across the rowing deck and step on the faces of the other men. The Worm arrives and tells Shlink that Garga has disappeared. Dawn arrives in the city and the hotel starts to prepare for another day.

Analysis

The concept of thick skin appears here and is elaborated on by Brecht. "You know, in its natural state human skin is too thin for this world. So men take care to see it grows thicker. There would be nothing wrong with the method, if only you could stop it from growing. Take a piece of tanned leather: it stays the way it is. But the living skin grows, it grows thicker and thicker." Shlink is saying that the thick skin prevents humans from being emotional. He explains to Marie that he got this way while on the Yangtze River, having his face stepped on.

The relationship between Shlink and Marie is like that of Mary Magdalene and Christ: "I want to sleep with a man, but I don't know how to do it." She tells him that she loves him, but she does not know the proper way to love a man who claims he cannot love. The parallel is strengthened by the fact that Shlink will not sleep with her.

Shlink's rejection of sex follows from his previous rejection of food. These two things together represent the sum total of physical contact that occurs in the play. In trying to become free from material needs, Shlink must reject both food and sex (avarice and lust) in order to prevent them from overpowering his mind and body.

Scene Five

It turns out Garga did not leave on a ship to Tahiti after all. He has returned to the hotel where he can be overheard in Shlink's room. Garga calls Shlink his, "Infernal Bridegroom". The Baboon and The Worm remark on the strange things men do for love, and discuss how Shlink gave up his entire lumber yard for it. Marie enters and sees Garga, who recognizes her through his drunken state. He call her a "dirty rag", but she refuses to be insulted. Garga asks her what she is doing in the hotel with Shlink, and she tells him that she loves Shlink even though he will not sleep with her.

Shlink emerges and Garga laughs at him. However, when Garga learns that Shlink has started to support his family, he realizes that Shlink is "appropriating" resources he never knew he had. Garga realizes that Shlink has taken over his family and his sister's love, thereby leaving him with only "metaphysics." Garga takes Marie and tries to force Shlink to take her for his wife. Shlink acquiesces, but Marie runs to Manky crying that they are trying to sell her. She decides to go live with Manky even though Shlink pleads for her to come back to him.

Garga asks Shlink for the money that Shlink received from the double-sale of the timber. Shlink gives it to him, thereby making himself bankrupt. Garga leaves and Shlink sits down. When he asks for some rice, The Worm tells him that he has overdrawn his account.

Analysis

This round of the fight seems to explicate the homosexuality in the relationship between Garga and Shlink. Garga calls Shlink his "Infernal Bridegroom" and refers to himself as a widow. However, the form of the relationship is metaphysical, not physical. Garga tells Shlink: "You're staging a metaphysical battle, and leaving the shambles behind." Garga realizes that Shlink is surviving on his former resources, his family and his sister's love. This loss of resources causes Garga to start "drifting away into metaphysics."

Marie as Mary Magdalene is given emphasis by her description of her love for Shlink. "I start shaking inside my dress, and then I say the wrong things to him." The biblical story indicates that Mary Magdalene had a platonic love for Jesus, a love that she was unable to understand. Marie similarly admits to loving Shlink but not being able to have him sexually.

Garga immediately sees that Shlink's relationship with Marie is providing Shlink with a "resource." Marie can give Shlink love without the requisite sexual appetite that inhibits mankind from being an unemotional thinker. Garga, chosen by Brecht to represent this unemotional being, realizes he must destroy this love. He therefore sells Marie, commoditizes love, and thus ruins love as an emotion. With Marie's virginity at stake, she chooses to give it away to Manky rather than Shlink.

The rejection of money, or rather the desire to eradicate monetary necessity, is hypocritically presented by The Worm. "I tell you, I've been around: all these people in the world, they're all of them suckers for dreams out of nothing but paper; they fall for it like a ton of bricks. And there's nothing so papery as real life." Paper represents currency and bills, the "dreams" of so many people. However, at the end of the scene, The Worm is the man who kicks out Shlink for not having enough cash.

Scene Six

Marie tells Shlink that she feels defiled from having had sex with Manky. He consoles her and says that she will be able to clean off. They exit and Manky comes onstage. He talks to himself, indicating that he is searching for Marie so that he can have sex with her. He pulls a pistol out and thinks of using it, but decides not to. After he leaves Shlink and Marie re-enter. She calls herself a whore and asks him for money. He wipes her tears and gives her some.

Analysis

Marie has become Mary Magdalene, the prostitute, a woman with her body defiled: "I am a whore". She admits to Shlink that she loves him and needs his love to support her. He tells her that she can wash, that she can be clean, thereby revealing himself as a Christ figure once more. However, their relationship has clearly been destroyed by the end of the scene. When he gives her money, she tells him that is is a "business transaction", meaning that their love has now been converted into monetary terms.

Scene Seven

George Garga has returned home with the money that Shlink gave him and refurnished the house. He also has married Jane and is eating dinner with the family the night of their marriage. John Garga remarks that things have been getting better and better since Shlink started supporting the family.

Shlink enters and Garga forces him to stand, saying that they are one chair too short. Shlink accepts this but then asks Garga to look at a letter from the Justice Department. It is a letter from one of the firms that Garga forced Shlink to cheat out of some lumber. Garga reads the letter and decides that he will go to jail. Both Shlink and his family try to convince him otherwise, but he is adamant, choosing to sacrifice his family in order to get revenge on Shlink.

Mae Garga gets up and tells her husband that she is leaving. Marie enters, still surviving on the money from Shlink. Her father begs her to take care of him now that Mae has run away, but she refuses. Garga returns and is surprised that his mother has left. He checks her wardrobe and concludes that she has left for good. He then writes a letter to police headquarters telling them that Shlink raped his sister and made indecent proposals to his wife Jane. Garga puts the letter in his pocket, intending to give it to the police when he is released in three years.

Analysis

This round of the fight seesaws between a victory for Shlink and a victory for Garga. Shlink has been supporting the Garga family this entire time. His willingness to go to jail therefore means the end of their income. Although it is unclear precisely why Garga chooses to go to jail for Shlink, it may have something to do with his desire to destroy Shlink's second resource, the Garga family. (The family is alluded to as a resource in Scene 5.) Thus by liquidating his family, Garga removes Shlink's "resource" and succeeds in defeating him in this round as well.

It is notable that prior to Shlink's arrival in his house, Garga had assumed that victory was his. Thus, we see him marrying Jane, thereby returning to his former relationship with her. He also indicates that he will return to Maynes Lending Library, renewing his former job. Shlink essentially wins this round by forcing Garga to make a calculated decision to go to jail.

Scene Eight

Three years have passed since Garga went to jail. Shlink has again set up a profitable business. He is telling a young clerk of his to reject an employment application from Marie Garga on the grounds that he wants nothing to do with her family. While conducting business, another man walks in and tells Shlink that Garga has released a letter accusing him on several counts. Shlink pays the man one thousand dollars and starts to pack, telling his clerk that he will return.

Analysis

This round, a clear victory for Garga, is interesting because of the fact that Shlink has rebuilt his business. It indicates that Shlink thought he had won the previous round in a definitive way. There is no reason for him to expend the effort to become successful again unless he believed that the fight was over. His last words, "I'll be back", also seem to imply that he continues to think he will win.

Scene Nine

The Baboon tells his companions that Shlink is being searched for all over the city and that it is the end of him. The Worm disagrees and tells a story about a dog who survived many of life's battles and ended up dying peacefully. Garga arrives in the hotel, having been released from prison after three years, accompanied by Maynes and some other gentlemen. He asks Jane to return home with him, but she refuses, saying that she prefers to stay with The Baboon as a whore.

The Worm comes over and tells Garga that the remnants of his family are still there (meaning Marie), but that the mother (Mae) has disappeared. He mentions that he saw Mae once cleaning the floor of a fruit dealer's warehouse. Garga sits down in front of Marie and tells her he loves her still. She informs him that she has become a prostitute who takes her excess money and throws it into a bucket. The Salvation Army Officer who is sitting at a nearby table comments that people are too durable and therefore can inflict too much harm on themselves. He leaves and soon thereafter they hear a gunshot. They drag the Salvation Army Officer back into the room. He has shot himself in the throat, but missed and only caused a scratch.

Garga laughs at the irony of failing to kill oneself. All the men leave with the wounded man and Garga tells Marie that Shlink is constantly on his mind. He claims that Shlink's skin is too thick and that no real damage has been done yet. Garga then tells her that he defeated Shlink because Shlink can no longer come and talk to him since the entire city of Chicago is looking for him. He laughs and says that Shlink will not "make it into the ring any more."

The Saloonkeeper tells Garga that there is a fire in the nearby lumber yard. Garga is already planning his future with all the normal amenities of life while listening to the lynching mob that is searching for Shlink. Behind him, Shlink enters with an American-style suit. He tells Garga to hurry up and come with him. Garga eulogizes the loss of Marie, Jane, and his mother, all of whom he claims went "to the dogs" three years earlier. As the yelling gets louder, they exit.

Analysis

The Worm continues the analogy of Shlink as Christ. Much like Peter, he denies every having worked for Shlink when Garga asks him. "Me? I never saw the man." This ties in the fact that Shlink is now on the run, about to be captured by the mob, in the sense that Peter denied Jesus after it had been decided to arrest him.

Marie is clearly no longer a virgin, and for the past three years she has worked as a prostitute. She throws away her excess money into a bucket; for Marie this represents the fiscal embodiment of her purity. The combination of money and sex, two things that she finds are necessary to survive, also makes them things to despise; they take away a person's freedom.

Garga admits to Marie that "[Shlink's] skin is too thick. It bends and deflects everything you thrust at him. There aren't enough spears." He is admitting at this stage that in spite of everything, all the attempts to make Shlink hate him have failed. Brecht believes that the ability to really feel emotion towards another human being has died. He is stating here that only powerful emotions like hate can penetrate the "thick skin" that people have grown in order to not feel emotion. However, from Garga's comments it appears that even the fight was not enough to make Shlink hate Garga. This is why Shlink must return to Garga and meet him again, "We haven't settled yet."

Scene Ten

Garga and Shlink are together in a railroad worker's tent outside of the city of Chicago. Garga tells Shlink that he now understands the point of the fight:

Garga: And now, as the end draws near, you've become a victim to the black addiction of this planet: you want to touch others.

Shlink: By hating them?

Garga: By hating.

Shlink: So you have understood it. We're companions, comrades in a metaphysical action!

Shlink then tells Garga that two weeks prior he gave Garga his second lumber business, the one that was burning in the previous scene. Shlink also hands him the ledger of the accounts. Garga is amused that Shlink has kept the ink-stained ledger with him the entire time.

Garga finally gets tired of listening to Shlink and tells him that their fight is over with him, the younger man, as the victor. Shlink is upset with Garga for ending the fight without any resolution. Garga never understood that the fight was about the soul, not the body. Garga argues that the soul is nothing and gets up and leaves Shlink to die.

Marie arrives and asks Shlink to take what little of her purity remains. He is upset when she tells him to flee the lynch mob that is still tracking him. Shlink is enjoying his last moments on the planet and wants to be alone, but Marie insists on staying with him. Shlink tells her that Garga already left to return to Chicago. He then delivers his final eulogy before lowering his head, asking her to cover his face, and dying. The men of the lynching party arrive at that moment, but Marie stands up and tells them go away because Shlink is already dead.

Analysis

This scene, the final round of the "boxing match", explicates many of Brecht's main ideas. The goal is to touch someone else through emotions rather than through physical means. "You want to touch others" says Garga, to which Shlink replies, "By hating them." This is the only way to interact with another human being other than through sexual contact or money. Shlink says, "If you stuff a ship's hold so full of human bodies, so it almost bursts - there will be such loneliness in that ship that they'll all freeze to death." The scene ends without a resolution to this problem, however, because Garga tells Shlink that he only pities him instead of hating him.

As a result of the fight failing to elicit emotions of hatred, Garga arbitrarily ends it. "It's as simple as that, Shlink: the younger man wins." Shlink makes the point that Garga has never really understood the point of the fight until this final moment, but Garga does not care anymore. The emergence of Marie seems to offer an alternative that even Shlink is unable to grasp, that alternative of love rather than hate. Shlink dies without being pierced by Marie's love, even though she has clearly been pierced by him.

Scene Eleven

Back in Chicago, Garga, his father, and Marie are standing in a room next to the burnt lumber yard. Garga has decided to move to New York and he wants to sell the place. Manky arrives and agrees to buy it from him. Garga makes Manky take Marie and his father to care for as part of the deal. The others leave and Garga pockets the money. He says, "To be alone - that's a good thing to be. The chaos has been used up. And it was the best of time."

Analysis

This final scene functions as the victor's round in the match, a scene where Garga is enjoying the spoils of his victory over Shlink. However, the victory is not without consequences. Garga realizes at this point that he misses the fight. He also adopts Shlink's attitude about being alone. "To be alone - that's a good thing to be. The chaos has been used up. And it was the best of time." Garga ends the play having fallen for what Shlink was telling him throughout.

• Biography of Bertolt Brecht
• About Jungle of Cities
• Character List
• Short Summary
• Full Summary and Analysis
• Summary and Analysis of Scenes 1-3
• Summary and Analysis of Scenes 4-6
• Summary and Analysis of Scenes 7-9
• Summary and Analysis of Scenes 10-11
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