Analysis Of The Jungle By Upton Sinclair

The Jungle by Upton Sinclair is a vivid account of life for the working class in the early 1900s. Jurgis Rudkus and his family travel to the United States in search of the American dream and an escape from the rigid social structure of Lithuania. Instead, they find a myriad of new difficulties. Sinclair attributes their problems to the downfalls of capitalism in the United States. While America’s system was idealistic for Jurgis and his family at first, the mood of the story quickly transforms to assert that capitalism is evil. This theme drives the author’s message and relay of major issues throughout the entirety of the novel. The idea of capitalism and social Darwinism is to

Several years before and after the turn the turn of the twentieth century, America experienced a large influx of European immigration. These new citizens had come in search of the American dream of success, bolstered by promise of good fortune. Instead they found themselves beaten into failure by American industry. Upton Sinclair wanted to expose the cruelty and heartlessness endured by these ordinary workers. He chose to represent the industrial world through the meatpacking industry, where the rewards of progress were enjoyed only by the privileged, who exploited the powerless masses of workers. The Jungle is a novel and a work of investigative journalism; its primary purpose was to inform the general public about the dehumanization

Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle is an unashamed example of the journalistic style known as muckraking. Sinclair researched the conditions being fought against during the Progressive Era and painted a picture in literary form for the ignorant readers. The consumerism that taped into the greed of industrialists is drawn out many times. This greed, in turn, drove down the American Standard of living in almost every aspect. With every corner of hope demolished, a path was laid out for all to follow, the Progressive solution to the world: Socialism.

In Upton Sinclair’s novel, The Jungle, he captivates the audience of early 1900 American’s in order to elaborate upon the lives of penniless immigrants in Chicago along with the hardships all were faced with during the time. In his novel, Sinclair aspires to provide a solution to the hardships created by the capitalistic oligarchy, socialism. Sinclair displays the capital system as the antagonist through the management of industrial businesses, poor health care, and safety and sanitary regulations in the workplace.

In the early 1900's life for America's new Chicago immigrant workers in the meat packing industry was explored by Upton Sinclair's novel The Jungle. Originally published in 1904 as a serial piece in the socialist newspaper Appeal to Reason, Sinclair's novel was initially found too graphic and shocking by publishing firms and therefore was not published in its complete form until 1906. In this paper, I will focus on the challenges faced by a newly immigrated worker and on what I feel Sinclair's purpose was for this novel.

The Jungle, written by Upton Sinclair, is a novel shedding light on work conditions in factories and constant unjustified acts. The story is filled with many different political and social issues for immigrants in the early 1900s. Sinclair uses multiple literary devices to express these issues in a way the reader may understand. Of the many issues pointed out in this novel, the one that stood out the most was disillusionment. The characters are constantly faced with new ideas they don’t yet understand, making them vulnerable to such an issue.

Christopher Phelps, ed. The Jungle by Upton Sinclair (Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2005), 363 pages with related documents.

In 1904 Upton Sinclair went undercover in the Chicago stockyards. He immersed himself in the meatpacking culture and studied the inner workings of one of the world’s largest industries. Through about seven weeks of posing as a worker, he had gathered enough material for his greatest work and a catalyst for change in the 20th century. Sinclair compiled his experiences to create his classic novel The Jungle. The book follows a family of Lithuanian immigrants and their pursuit of the American Dream. Because this novel is a forerunner in the field of investigative journalism, the scenes and events are based off of real life observations and research. The experiences may not be exact stories from people but the circumstances were realistic. Through

The title, “The Jungle” (Upton Sinclair. The Jungle. New York: Barnes and Noble Classics, 2005), when dissected after having read it, denotes Upton Sinclair’s view of the time period, where Capitalism was the corrupted script for people’s lives rather than Socialism. Throughout the course of the book Upton Sinclair explores, in depth, the evils levied upon stockyard workers, as a result of Capitalism, to include family and immigration, while narrowly serving his own agenda of pushing the concept of Socialism.

The jungle delved deep in the plight of the immigrants while shedding light on the unsanitary conditions of the meat packing industry and revealing the oppressive corrupt capitalist system. It exposed may truisms to the American public about the working class conditions at work, home and in religious settings. Although all the ingredients were used to expose a capitalist society in the end what resulted was something less than what Upton Sinclair expected. His book had law making and historical importance, but only to 8 or so pages that detailed the most gruesome aspects of working in the meat packing plant.

The Jungle by Upton Sinclair was a novel written to display the crudeness of Chicago’s big business. It tells the life of Jurgis Rudkus, who moves to Chicago, Illinois from Lithuania. He faces many health and employment related issues in his new life. Upton Sinclair uses capitalism as a symbol of evil, and corruption, he does this by telling the health, and employment related issues Jurgis and his family have, while socialism is symbolized as angelic and bright. What should have been a clear beginning after Jurgis’ wedding, was actually great turmoil.

Upton Sinclair’s classic novel, The Jungle, strongly illustrates the negative consequences of capitalism through the harsh conditions immigrants faced living in America in the early 1900’s. In the novel, the reader is introduced to Jurgis Rudkus and his family who emigrated from Lithuania to the States in hope for a better future. Although many issues arose in the novel,

Upton Sinclair took interest in fiction at an early age by writing fiction stories as a young boy to writing adventure stories and jokes to help support himself through college. He was the winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1943 and focused on writing fiction stories about real world industrialist views. Upton Sinclair’s fiction “The Jungle” entwines the reality of the dangerous and legal conditions of meat industry workers and consumers in Chicago while narrating the lower-class lifestyle of an immigrant family relocating from a small town in Europe to America in search for a better living. During their hardship and unsuccessful process of finding this “better” lifestyle, the horrors and unsafe conditions of the meat packing industry are legitimately exposed. Back in that time, the occupation of factory working or the meat packing industry was popularly considered the source of family income. From young to old, these men, women, boys and girls were under paid and worked in terrible and unsafe conditions. Sinclair also focused on factors that women went through for employment. Many people felt as if Sinclair was fond of exaggeration while writing this book but the most important thing is that this book imposed change in America.

The main thesis of Sinclair’s novel The Jungle is capitalism. He is attempting to highlight the negative aspects and provide a solution, in this case socialism. He provides a description of the employers up top who take advantage of, and provide poor working conditions for the lower class workers in order to maximize economic gains. Sinclair portrays the ripple effects on the lower class caused by capitalism. He shows how poverty can affect the home life of families, and how it can force people into horrible situations.

Written by Upton Sinclair, The Jungle explores the sheer, harsh conditions of the living and working environment in the Chicago stockyards. The title is significant because it represents the realities of the labor force and depicts a wild, brutal environment that benefited the wealthy, while leaving the inferior working class fighting to survive. In Particular, the The Jungle denotes the life of Jurgis and his family in Packingtown and their hardships they face in the Chicago stockyards. Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle has a significant title because through corruption and capitalism, the weak and poor suffer, while the strong and wealthy flourish.