Analyzing Upton Sinclair's The Jungle

The Jungle by Upton Sinclair was written to expose the brutality faced by the workers in the meatpacking industry. Sinclair wanted to show people what was really going on in the factory because few people were informed about these companies work conditions. He wanted to show the public that meat was “ diseased, rotten, and contaminated” (Willie).” This revelation shocked the, public which later led to the creation of the federal laws on food and safety. Sinclair strongly shows the failure of capitalism in the meatpacking industry which he viewed as inhumane, destructive, unjust, brutal, and violent (Willie).”

Upton Sinclair was the author of a book called "The Jungle". His book was designed to bring light to the conditions of those who canned meat in Chicago, but his foul descriptions of the unsanitary food, and the vile slaughterhouses resonated with his readers much more.

Based on chapter 13 of How To Read Literature Like A Professor I believe The Jungle is a political work centered on the contrasts between capitalism and socialism. Upton Sinclaire uses Jurgis to represent immigrants and the working class, making the character more relatable helps to get the authors point across to the audience. Wether it be politically or otherwise, the story is meant to change us and in turn change society. In the case of The Jungle , Sinclaire uses symbolism and propaganda like antics to express his ideas both through Jurgis and the story itself. This novel being programmatic (pushing a single cause, concern or party position) supports socialist ideas and causes. For example, in The Jungle, Jurgis is constantly oppressed

Do you think it would be easier to live in the country or the city, in order to survive? Well, search no further for answers. Today i’ll be writing about how I agree that the fight for survival was fairer in the country than it was in the city, in the book, The Jungle, by: Upton Sinclair.

Jurgis and his family are thrust into the polluting factories, toiling away for meager wages. Even as all of them work, including the children, it’s barely enough to scrape by to pay for rent and food. “Working harder,” as Jurgis says, only brings them closer to death. As the result of capitalist greed, workers are treated as only a means to an end, making profit while the workers scrounged up cents a day to make ends meet. Immigrants such as Jurgis were a seemingly endless supply, and employers manipulated this to implement cheap wages for long hours. All around Jurgis, his family members waste away; his wife, Ona, dies during childbirth because their family couldn’t afford a doctor inside the attic of a dingy house. One of the children, “wretchedly sick and undersized” [1, Ch. 13, pg. 91] was perpetually sick and dressed in shabby clothes and forced to crawl under heavy machinery. Furthermore, one particular scene describes Ona’s rape; if she didn’t sleep with her boss, Phil Connor, her whole family would be without work. Sinclair portrays capitalism as soulless and lacking any empathy for humanity.  Jurgis keeps “working harder,” [1, Ch. 1, pg. 14] but capitalism forces him to work harder and harder until he cannot work any harder. Jurgis then comes to be educated in socialism, where he is enthralled by the idea. His journey through the jungle has only brought him grief, and in the end he can only rely on himself. The people that have meant most of them have submitted themselves to capitalism or have died at the hands of their work. The economic system has failed him, the judicial system has failed him, and he had nowhere to turn. Socialism was his answer, and so after meeting Hinds, who educated him, his life turned around and gave him a purpose to fight for.

In the Labor Union, many workers advocated for improvements of working conditions. In an excerpt by Upton Sinclair’s “The Jungle” describes the disgustingness of meatpacking industry and the horrendous conditions the workers had to be in. Workers had to work at least 16 hours of labor a day under dreadful working conditions, while being paid low wages. On top of that, many workers would lose limbs while working; workers would lose their lives at work. The majority of the workers would be children, due to children not asking for high wages and they are able to get into the machines to work or fix them.

The Jungle is a novel about a Lithuanian family working in the stockyards in Chicago. The writer depicts the struggle for survival in the poor working condition and how they must endure hardships and overwhelming work. Furthermore, the novel provides a detailed description of the meatpacking company in the early twenty-century and the life of many immigrants. Later, the family

The working environment in slaughterhouses and meat packing factories were atrocious. According to Sinclair in The Jungle, the workers in these factories were to pickle or smoke spoiled meat and cut off the contaminated parts. The meat that had been dropped was picked up and put back in the grinder as if nothing happened at all. If a whole ham is spoiled to the point it smelled the workers were to chop it up with other meats and pour chemicals to smother the pungent odor oozing off the meat. Rats overrun storage rooms where the meat is kept in piles under insufficient, leaky ceilings. The factories have workers mop up the brine, that is used to preserve the meat, towards a hole in the floor so it can be recycled and used again. After a few days, workers were to shovel the unused rotten scraps into the truck that hauled off the meat.

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 the author of The Jungle a self proclaimed socialist. Wanted to show what the meatpacking industry was like from an outside perspective. Novelist have free rein when writing a novel but in this case Sinclair did not have the proper evidence to back up his version of the meat packing industry. The version that Sinclair portrayed in The Jungle was of appalling working conditions. The way he described it was diseased and rotten. The community of these workers were as misrepresented as packers and packinghouse products. He portrays Jurgis as a helpless animal that is wounded, the target for unseen enemies.

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.

Thesis Statement: Upton Sinclair was a muckraker who wrote, “The Jungle”, which exposed the problems of the meatpacking industry.

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 is a novel that focuses on a family of immigrants who came to America looking for a better life. The novel was written by Upton Sinclair, who went into the Chicago stockyards to investigate what life was like for the people who worked there. The book was originally written with the intent of showing Socialism as a better option than Capitalism for the society. However, the details of the story ended up launching a government investigation of the meat packing plants, and ultimately regulation of food products. It gave an informative view of what life was like in America at the time. Important topics like immigration, working conditions and sanitation issues of the time were all addressed well in the novel.

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.