In the short story “Afternoon in the Jungle”, Albert Maltz revealed the society under the Great Depression with an absurd fight between a thirteen-year-old child and “a small, shabby man of forty-five”.

Everything started with imaginative play: Charles Fallon threw imaginary missiles and picked up imaginary money, but then his dreams were interrupted by a lady who “came out and told him to stop leaning against the glass and move along”. His day became worse when he didn’t have money to buy the candy that he wanted; then, change suddenly came as neighbor Mr. Sheehy dropped a 50¢ coin (worth almost $15 in today’s money) when he was getting on a bus.

Due to the limited time, Mr. Sheehy told Charles that he’ll give him a dime if he could find the coin he dropped; Charles decided to find the coin, but he didn’t think of giving it back: “It would be the simplest thing in the world of course to tell Old Man Sheehy that he had not been able to find it”.  So he decided to borrow three pennies from his mother to buy chewing gum; then, he could fish the coin up with the gum. The main conflict of this story starts now.

Overall, Maltz’s story gives us a peek into the physical and psychological conditions that people went through in the Great Depression: readers can see how the collapse of the economy caused a once normal or even wealthy family to become penniless, how people like the “small, shabby man of forty-five” being forced to live off of picking up coins, how the Roaring ‘20s popped like the imaginative play Charles imagined. Indeed, entirely new industries were invented, such as high level scavenging. Picture to yourself the lengths this small man went in his pursuit of lost treasures: “Secured to the inside of his coat by leather straps were four lengths of broom handle, whittled to reduce their thickness, each about three feet long, each fitted at one end with a rubber socket by which it would be joined to another length”. Naturally he is better equipped for salvaging the 50¢ piece.

It isn’t only the life under the Great Depression that Maltz showed; what he also wanted the readers to feel is how extreme poverty and unemployment turn everyone (including children) into beasts that only care about money (this is why this story is named “Afternoon in the Jungle”). The change of Charles from a child who plays on the streets to a beast that “grabbed a chunk of ice” and “flung it” at a person for 50 cents is the strongest evidence and provides a snap back to the title, as does the last line: “Charlie stood trembling in triumph, his face turned to stone. It had become dark.”