The lives of people who immigrated to the United States in the early 1900s were harder than they anticipated. In Upton Sinclair’s novel The Jungle, class, racism, and sexism shape the experiences and choices of the immigrants in many ways.
The Jungle was written in 1906 and the novel also takes place around that same time. Class affects the immigrants extensively throughout the book. The family that The Jungle focuses on is very poor and they do not have many opportunities because of it. They are looked down upon by the business-owners and the wealthier people that they encounter. The family is not treated fairly and when they first come to the United States, they are tricked into buying a house that they eventually lose because it cost more
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Ona and Marija are the characters most affected. Jurgis thinks of Ona as a fragile thing that he must protect throughout the novel. He does not even want her to work at first, until she is forced to in order for the rest of them to survive. Because Jurgis is so defensive of Ona, she does not feel as though she can tell Jurgis when she begins to be assaulted by Conner at work (126). She knows that if she tells Jurgis, he will fight him and get in trouble and she will lose her job. She feels as though she has to lie to him about where she is and what she is doing in order for the rest of her family to be okay. Jurgis interprets the assault as more than just an attack on his wife, but also a blow to his pride and his ability to take care of his family. On the other hand, the female gender is explored in a very different way with Marija. Marija is shown to have more in common with the men of the family than with Elzbieta or Ona. She is a strong and hardworking woman and she even gets a job that is meant for men at one point. Although her and Ona are so different, they both still fall in love and get engaged (71), which is great because it does not reinforce the idea that you can not be independent and also be in love. Marija’s relationship with her fiance, Tamoszius is different from the other relationships portrayed in itself. Tamoszius is frail and petite while Marija is broad and strong, which are qualities not usually attributed to women. “Marija could have picked him up and carried him off under one arm.” While the oddity of this pairing is remarked upon by the other characters, it does not make their relationship any less
Many people believe Upton Sinclair wrote The Jungle to expose the harsh conditions of the meat-packing industry, which led to new federal food safety laws. This, however, was not the only point Sinclair was attempting to portray in this novel. While industry was one of the points addressed in The Jungle, another main point Sinclair wanted to get across to the public was that immigrants were being treated very poorly in American society. By 1904, immigrants made up most of the workforce of the meat-packing industry, so they had to deal with all the conditions of the workplace, including slim pay. These workers were crowded into small tenement apartments near the slaughterhouse, therefore making living conditions incredibly poor for everyone.
In the early 1900’s there was a dramatic increase in the number of immigrants coming to the eastern shores of America. Many were pulled to America because of its economic opportunity, freedom, need for labor and its beautiful country. Immigrants were excited to come to America and were pushed from their home countries because of food shortages, overpopulation, war and political instability. This was going on in an important era in American history called the “gilded age”. It was a time of economic growth, and industrialization but also had high percentages of poverty mainly in urban environments. The majority of the immigrants intended to advance out west but actually settled in the eastern cities. In the book The Jungle, Jargis and his
“The Jungle”, written by Upton Sinclair, is an astonishing novel informing readers about the devastating truths involving impoverished life in America, particularly Chicago. This novel gives the reader an inside look into to the struggles of numerous European immigrants as they ventured to America during the early 1900 's. Sinclair depicts the disturbing and emotional realities average people in America faced daily and successfully demonstrates the correct societal and governmental reforms such as the meat packing industry would have allowed these issues to be avoided. The main societal and
As of 2015, immigrants make up more than 43.3 percent of the United States population. By the early 1900s there were already more than 10 million immigrants living in America. Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle reveals the struggles and hardships of a family that immigrated to the United States from Lithuania during the 1900s. Although many immigrant families came to America in search of a better life, soon most found themselves barely surviving with no job, food, shelter, or money. As is the case of the family in The Jungle. The novel not only unveils the corruption of the political and economic system during the time, but also exposes the severe torment and misery that was faced by the working class. Upton Sinclair’s book, The Jungle, describes
The Jungle is set in the early 1900’s in the industrialized city of Packingtown, Chicago. This book first starts with some background information about Jurgis and his extended family of twelve, and how they got to America. Ironically they are coming to America to get out of their home country of Lithuania and live the “American Dream”. This takes a turn for the worst. Jurgis is a determined, hardworking man who does not want to do anything else other than support his family the best that he possibly can.
For many who lived through it, the late 1900s, especially the 1980s, was a very tough time for Americans and immigrants alike. While America had to focus on repairing its country from the Vietnam War, a population surge, and the AIDS epidemic, immigrants were suffering from the xenophobic laws passed by American congress. The Haitian people, for instance, were running to America to get away from government tyranny and a severe economic depression, only to be turned away on a technicality. Even if they made it to America, they faced discrimination and poverty. It was a lose-lose situation for the Haitians. Upton Sinclair seemed to have a similar view of the Lithuanian immigrants of the 1800s. Upton Sinclair is the author of The Jungle, a book that follows a family of Lithuanian immigrants as they travel to and try to make their way in America. Sinclair used the book to speak out about the issues of America through the eyes of immigrants, including the economic system and the corruption within the government. The question this paper is required to answer is if Upton Sinclair adequately portrayed the immigrant experience. There are many reasons why one might say he didn’t, such as the fact that what he portrayed appears to be a worst case scenario and the fact that he, a white man, would not understand the turmoils of immigrant life. However, this paper is going to explain why others believe Upton Sinclair adequately portrayed the immigrant experience through The Jungle.
The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines a jungle as, “a harsh or dangerous place or situation in which people struggle for survival or success. ” The Jungle, by Upton Sinclair, is a dramatized portrait of an immigrant family enduring the turmoil that existed within the jungle of the early 20th Century. The family has difficulty staying afloat due to high living expenses, low wages, cyclical employment, and unending setbacks. These conditions within ‘the jungle’ break their family apart, strip away their values, and in some cases even take their lives. The Jungle provides an impactful depiction of the appalling conditions of the labor forces, abysmal living conditions, and plight of the working class during the early 20th Century.
The American industrial revolution is normal thought of as a time of happiness and prosper because of the constant stream of innovations and technologies. However, most of the hardships and struggles that were faced in this time we're not the American citizens, but the immigrants that came in search of jobs and a better life. Sadly, these immigrants didn't find a better life and instead worked long hours in terrible conditions with little pay. The novel, The Jungle, written by Upton Sinclair focusses on the struggles and hardships of these very immigrants. Through the use of figurative language in the Novel, The Jungle, written by Upton Sinclair, Sinclair tries to convey his message that the immigrant workers during the industrial revolution
The Jungle depicts the exploitation of immigrant lives in Packingtown, a town near Chicago. The small industrialized town is filled with oppressing poverty, dangerous and
The novel, “The Jungle” by Upton Sinclair can be interpreted differently by modern impoverished American immigrants/minorities and the modern American rich class. “The Jungle” by Upton Sinclair is a fictional novel and was published in 1906. It was based on the lives of the individuals he observed in Chicago around that time. He discovered that the lower-working class there was doing horrific work for not enough pay to get themselves, let alone their families, by. He emphasizes on the flaws of the “American Dream” and writes in the support of the Socialist party of the time. The book is about Jurgis, a Lithuanian immigrant trying to find work in Chicago, Illinois
The Jungle is a book that was written in 1906, in the middle of the Progressive Era. It was written by Upton Sinclair for the purpose to try to awaken the reader to the terrible living conditions of immigrants in the cities. But also to show how the harsh critical system led to meat inspection legislation and the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906. This novel specifies in every little detail about the living conditions and the working conditions of the immigrants. In this book, Sinclair indirectly articulates what the American Dream was and what it meant for all the immigrants.
The Jungle, by Upton Sinclair is about Lithuanian immigrants moving to the United States seeking the American Dream. When they arrive, the family is faced with many hardships. Jurgis Rudkus’ family lives in an overcrowded city called Packingtown, in poverty. The Jungle tells readers about the struggles of being an immigrant in poverty and the horrors of the meat packing industry in the early 20th century. Sinclair’s goal was to make people aware of how hard immigrants had to work in terrible conditions. The public, though, was more concerned with the issues in the meat packing industry. Many people were now speaking out about food quality and working conditions.
In the novel, “The Jungle” author Upton Sinclair manages to embody and portray the harsh conditions and unjust lives of immigrants in the United States. This novel was an importance piece of protest literature because at the current time American capitalism was demolishing whatever was left of the working class. Due to this, journalists, known as “muckrakers at the time”, set out to reveal the brutality implanted into the system. Upton Sinclair was considered one of those muckrakers because of one his famous works, The Jungle, being able to subsume the issues immigrant works tackled because of the unsanitary conditions in the meatpacking industry and the corruption in the government and business. In essence, The Jungle, fulfilled its
The Jungle’s purpose is to illustrate just what happens when the American Dream does not come true. It is not for a lack of determination that its protagonist does not succeed with abundance -- nor ethic or spirit; he merely falls victim to a system in which those at the top succeed with abundance at the severe expense of those left with nothing at the bottom. The book’s author, Upton Sinclair, sought to show America the cost of its capitalist system. Born into a poor family with wealthy relatives, Sinclair was aware of social and economic disparity in America from a young age (The Jungle v). The Jungle is the result of Upton Sinclair working undercover for seven weeks in Chicago’s meatpacking industry in 1904, as well as the socialist
The novel, The Jungle by Upton Sinclair depicts the lives of poor immigrants in the United States during the early 1900’s. Sinclair is extremely effective in this novel at identifying and expressing the perils and social concerns of immigrants during this era. The turmoil that immigrants faced was contingent on societal values during the era. There was a Social Darwinist sentiment