Sinclair 's The Jungle And Schlosser 's Fast Food Nation

In 1906, a book started taking the nation by storm. The book was titled The Jungle and it was written by Upton Sinclair, a muckraker who exposed corrupt government and business practices. He infiltrated Chicago meat packing industries and documented the exploited lives of the workers. However, more people were concerned with the unsanitary practices in the meat industry. This led to reforms such as the Meat Inspection Act and the Pure Food and Drug Act. Despite the reforms that have taken place over the past century, there are still many problems with the meat packing industry. It harms the workers, endangers the consumers, and has negative effects on the environment.

Readers were not concerned with the treatment of workers, as portrayed by The Jungle, because they really didn't care for the working class, or more specifically, immigrants. However, readers were shocked when they discovered exactly how their meat was processed and prepared. Sinclair used just as much, if not more, gruesome detail in describing the products the American public was consuming, as he did when describing the workplace, living conditions, politics, society and Chicago's scenery. In a futile attempt to build up the readers' sympathy toward the wage-slaves, Sinclair also details the process in which foods not related to the meat-packing industry are prepared. For example, he writes, "their pale blue milk...was watered, and doctored with formaldehyde."

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).”

The lack of oversight in politics allowed industries to circumvent controversy and take advantage of the american people. Furthermore businesses such as the meat industry were able to sell unhealthy meat to the people. As well the meat industry provided unsanitary and harsh working conditions in which nobody could work in. For example in “The Jungle” Sinclair describes the horrific process in the meat industry and the reality of the business. In a meat packing factory a family has to deal with the harsh working conditions: “And yet, in spite of this, there would be hams found spoiled, some of them with an odor so bad that a man could hardly bear to be in the room with them” (160 Sinclair). The meatpackers revolting and toxic hygiene practice serves as a metaphor for the exploitive labor

Sinclair’s writing started to become very eminent in the early 1900’s, and by the age of 16 his book The Jungle changes the food industry forever. In 1905 Sinclair was hired to work in “Packingtown” Chicago for a meat processing company for a pay of $500 ( $13,513.51 today’s money) (Upton Sinclair Hits Readers in the Stomach). For two months Sinclair worked in the meatpacking industry, afterwards, he went into solitude for nine months to write about the details of the industry. “The meat would be shoveled into carts,

In the 20th century, factory jobs were one of the most sought after by immigrants and members of the American lower class. These jobs were often in unsafe conditions, with long working hours, and very poor paying salaries. In 1906, Upton Sinclair released a narrative entitled The Jungle, a description of immigrant working conditions in the meat packing and production industry. It was intended to reach out to the average American and inform them of the conditions in which immigrants lived and

Have you ever went to McDonalds and looked at the food and asked “is this even real food?” The food industry is a very questionable industry because of how corrupt it was during the late 1800s. A great example of the food industry corruption was the book The Jungle by Upton Sinclair. In the book, Upton Sinclair expose all the corrupt of the late 1800s capitalists who would dehumanize citizens and their workers. The book talks about a man named Jurgis, who just came to America with his family and tells how his life starts to change. They talk about his job and their very poor work conditions and how they value human life. The capitalists and their industries not only affected Jurgis, but also his family and other citizens. In the book,

In the book The Jungle, Upton Sinclair portrays the life of a Lithuanian family and begins working in the unhealthy and unsanitary meat packing plants. Sinclair is part of the socialist party. Sinclair’s diction, imagery, and anaphora help expose the harsh, unhealthy working conditions that the workers faced in the meatpacking industry in order to put in laws that regulate the working conditions. Sinclair’s overall purpose is to promote Socialism to help the immigrants and others working get the fair and just treatment that they deserve.

In 1906 Doubleday published a fiction novel based in reality and centered on immigrant life in the Chicago meat packing district. “The Jungle,” was written by Upton Sinclair, a 27 year old author from Baltimore under a $500 advance from a socialist newspaper. This novel soon became a focus of controversy and change within the United States. Though known more for it’s horrific portrayal of the conditions inside slaughterhouses, only 60 pages of the 413 pages that make up “The Jungle” detail the goings-on of the meat packing industry.Sinclair’s book was intended to be a political and social commentary on the plight of the worker during the turn of the century. Oddly enough, the story opens with a wedding.

Sinclair’s poetic imagery concerning the dead animals was to represent the fate of the workers, and instead made the reader sick to their stomach (Wilson). This misinterpretation, however, was powerful force which demanded an immediate change. The Meat Inspection Act and the Pure Food and Drug Act passed in 1906, and led to the development of the federal Food and Drug Administration (Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle). With the publication of The Jungle, Sinclair became internationally famous and even more involved in social issues. He went on to muckrake the steel and glass-making industry as well as continuing to lobby for meatpacking

In The Jungle, by Upton Sinclair, Sinclair reveals his attitude towards the the meat industry by saying it is unsanitary, treats their employees unfavorably, and makes everyone who works there dislike it and it is not what the immigrants thought it would be like. Throughout the book, Sinclair uses may qoutes telling about the difficulties that the employees that worked at the meat industry had to go through. During the Industrial Revolution, the rules regarding cleanest in a working place were much different than they ever have been. In The Jungle, Sinclair describes how dirty and repulsive the true meat industry was.

     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

Upton Sinclair, who was an undercover journalist, wrote The Jungle which exposed the Chicago Meat Company’s numerous health issues with their products. The company did everything they could to conserve money. For example, they purposely used spoiled and molded meat and through neglect allowed dead mice to find their way into their meat grinders. The owners of the the meat packing company denied what was occuring in their factories for the sole purpose of profit, nothing could alter their opinions on the state of their facilities. Wooden-headedness led to the Chicago Meat Company ignoring the state of unhygienic conditions present in their

. A. Upton Sinclair wrote, “The Jungle”, to expose the appalling working conditions in the meatpacking industry.

Fast food restaurants exude bright colors, distribute meals with toys, and create a sense of happiness, but what truly goes on behind the scenes of this magical industry? In Eric Schlosser’s Fast Food Nation and Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle, the authors use similar rhetorical strategies to reveal the motives and unconventional practices of the food industry. Schlosser conveys his purpose through the utilization of pathos, ethos, anecdotes and imagery as compared to Sinclair who uses historical references and figurative language as well as imagery and pathos.