Public Capitalism In Upton Sinclair's 'The Jungle'

Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle was the most impactful during its time. This book was written to portray Capitalism in a more realistic manner, to show how inhuman, brutal, and violent the unregulated economic system could be to those working in labor. Sinclair uses Jurgis’s family to prove the effects an unfair economic system has on the working class. During this period of industrial prosperity, immigrants came to America with total faith in the “American Dream”, that their hard work will be rewarded with wealth and stability. But they soon find out that this dream is as hollow and shallow as the hearts of the men they worked for. Sinclair proves how sinful Capitalism is, between selling meat coated in disease and forcing small children into

     While the works of Upton Sinclair are not widely read today because of their primacy of social change rather than aesthetic pleasure, works like The Jungle are important to understand in relation to the society that produced them.  Sinclair was considered a part of the muckraking era, an era when social critics observed all that was wrong and corrupt in business and politics and responded against it.  The Jungle was written primarily as a harsh indictment of wage slavery, but its vivid depictions of the deplorable lack of sanitation involved in the meatpacking industry in Chicago resulted in public outrage to the point where Congress passed the Pure Food and Drug Act and the Meat Inspection

Many believe the path to success isn’t easy, but with hard work, drive, and passion, it is possible to attain the American Dream. However, when a person thinks of the American dream they are standing from the outside looking in and fail to see the struggle that comes with it. In the Jungle, Upton Sinclair portrays how difficult it is to obtain this fantasy by showing the journey of a Lithuanian immigrant family coming to America. They came to America because they heard that “any man willing to work an honest day would make a living and could support his family.” Jurgis Rudkis, the main character of the jungle, is a vigorous, motivated, and honorable Immigrant whose vision is quickly destroyed by poverty, disappointments, and corruption. "I will work harder," is Jurgis 's motto and his answer to every setback he encounters. While this attitude brings Jurgis closer to the American dream, the harder he works the more obstacles he seems to face. Cheated in the worst ways possible, Jurgis tries to push forward through everything, hoping he will eventually gain the dream he had heard of in the past. "I will work harder" only helps Jurgis so much in his quest to achieve the American Dream. However, it could work in today’ America.

The Jungle tells the story of one Lithuanian family's journey to America to seek a better life. When the Rudkus family first arrive, they are naively hopeful about their prospects in America and have dreams of owning a home, marrying, and having children. Once they arrive, their dreams are not easy or even possible to achieve. Ona and the children must go to work, family members die as a result of brutal working conditions, and the family is cheated into signing a lease on a home, which they eventually lose. The optimism of the Rudkus family is contrasted with the hardships in their lives, and their dreams are replaced by a struggle for survival. Through their experience, Sinclair shows how immigrants are used as mere tools for capitalist

Upton Sinclair published his novel, The Jungle, in 1906 using elements of naturalistic fiction, with the idea that ordinary people cannot overcome the system, to convey his political agenda. He did this by writing about a fictional family that comes to Chicago from Lithuania with the promise of guaranteed work where they “might earn three roubles a day” and be “rich m[en] in the bargain” (Sinclair 24-25). He used the meatpacking industry to show the extreme affects a large scale industry can have on an individual and on a family and to draw sympathy from the reader for typical families in capitalist America, choosing to focus on the immigrant experience. The Jungle, however, not only describes the horrific working conditions and the failures

Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle discusses the evils of capitalism in a meatpacking sector of Chicago, also known as Packingtown. It was evident that Sinclair did not support a capitalist form of government. His socialist political beliefs certainly impacted the style and content of The Jungle. Sinclair strived to exploit the Chicago meatpacking factories and educate his audience of the dangers that a capitalistic government could have on European immigrants and public safety. While Sinclair was exposing the evils of capitalism, the public was disturbed by the gruesome details, “I aimed at the public’s heart, and by accident I hit in the stomach.” By exposing the despicable methods of food production and lack of personal hygiene within the factories, Sinclair unmasked the effects of a capitalist government during the early 1900s, revealing his socialist opinion and forever changing the nature of meatpacking industries.

In The Jungle, Author Upton Sinclair uses Jurgis, the main character of the book, as an example of what the common working man’s life was like. Jurgis, along with all his family are Lithuanian immigrants, who just immigrated to the U.S. Not knowing the foreign culture, they were hired by a meatpacking plant. This plant, ran by corrupt politicians, applied strict rules and regulations; not reimbursing/paying their workers enough, long hours, etc. Jurgis joined a Union, after realizing he should fight for his rights as a laborer. Sinclair’s opinion about labor rights was, that the common working man should fight for, and be granted more rights to increase their chance of supporting their families.

Most citizens today work on the basis of the American Dream, their hopes replaying in their minds every day as they work to get themselves at the top of the chain in the land of opportunity. The minds of the laborers filled with hope that one day everything will be better and the fruit of their labor will soon bloom to light. But, Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle paints a more grim reality of hard work and the dream that Jurgis and his family held so dear to his heart. The corruption of the American Dream conveys the delusion of a reward for the hard work and suffering of the laborers in Packingtown instead showing it as an illusion created by capitalism.

This novel examines the relationship between a Lithuanian immigrant man named Jurgis Rudkus and the American society he experiences in Packingtown, an area of Chicago. Though this source is a work of historical fiction, the extensive research that went into it’s production and the shocking detail of the prose proves The Jungle to be a strikingly accurate and realistic depiction of the immigrant experience. Jurgis comes to the U.S. with a firm belief in the American Dream. “I will work harder!” was his motto, but that way of thinking is rapidly crushed by the cruel capitalist reality Jurgis finds himself in.

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.

For many, the word “jungle” brings to mind a tropical overgrowth of dense vegetation and swooping, snake like vines, not the miserable, poverty-stricken Packingtown of industrial Chicago. However, in The Jungle, Upton Sinclair’s exposé of the meatpacking industry, many of the jungle’s primitive rules of survival govern the “urban jungle” of Chicago. Unaware of what they must do to survive, Jurgis and his family struggle to find the core values of the American dream that they naïvely believe in: acceptance, opportunity, hard work, and morality. Through their lives and surroundings, Sinclair displays how the occupants of Packingtown cast aside their moral values, in favor of greed, in order to survive.

In Upton Sinclair’s novel The Jungle, his main idea is to push for socialism because he thinks you have to be corrupt in order to practice capitalism. Throughout the novel he makes numerous metaphors about how capitalism is bad and a person must be corrupt in order to be successful. The main example for this is the main character Jurgis Rudkus, who displayed various acts of corruption in order to survive and make a living for himself. I’m the end of the novel, Upton Sinclair had Jurgis become really involved in a socialist party, and he allegedly did fine.

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.

Jokubas, Jurgis’ old friend from Lithuania who also immigrated to America, explained to Jurgis’ the meticulous process the pigs went through in the slaughterhouses. Every tangible part of the job had a purpose: the hooves made glue, the bristles made paintbrushes, the hide made leather products; nonetheless, the squeal could not be contained. Moreover, a squeal is not profitable, therefore the sound was not useful. In the same way, according to Sinclair, capitalism used everything about the lower class except their squeal. Sinclair depicted capitalism in the same light- the hogs were the lower class, while the butchers were the profiteers. The lower class toiled laboriously for little pay; dwelled in poor and unsanitary homes; and were swindled

In Sinclair’s novel, the jungle, you get a closer look into the societal classes and the struggles that immigrants face when they come to America. In this essay, I will be talking about all the things that Jurgis as well as his family have overcome. Such as their downfalls as well as how they prospered and managed to stay together through most of the novel. Social Darwinism helps you get a different perspective of all the things going on in the societal classes.