Socialism And Capitalism In Upton Sinclair's The Jungle

Employers of these plants provided very little for their workers and paid them merely a fraction of what American citizens were originally paid. In fact, Sinclair wrote that “There was no place for the men to wash their hands before they ate their dinner, and so they made a practice of washing them in the water that was to be ladled into the sausage.” Sinclair’s observance depicts employers as careless when it comes to how they treat their workers and how they run their businesses. There was also nowhere to eat in the factories, so workers were forced to either eat in the stench from which they work or they had to eat at the liquor store to escape the potent smells of the workplace. Injuries were also very common in the meat-packing plants. Fatigued workers became carless and since they were working with sharp knives, they often sliced off parts of their fingers. Most of the time, steam filled the air and men were running rampant with sharp objects, so Sinclair thought that it was “a wonder that there were not more men slaughtered than

Christopher Phelps’ Introduction states, “As a metaphor, ‘jungle’ denoted the ferocity of dog-eat-dog competition, the barbarity of exploitative work, the wilderness of urban life, the savagery of poverty, the crudity of political corruption, and the primitiveness of the doctrine of survival of the fittest, which led people to the slaughter as surely as cattle.”(1), this is the foundation to Sinclair’s arguments that capitalism promotes competition between the working-class for mere survival all the while destroying human rights

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,

The scraps of an animal ended up in lard, soap, and fertilizer. Unskilled immigrants executed all the hazardous work, in dark and extremely hot rooms. Workers stood on floors covered with blood, meat scraps, and foul water ("BRIA 24 1 B Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle: Muckraking the Meat-Packing Industry"). Women and children over 14 were given specific jobs such as sausage making and canning. Salaries consisted of pennies per hour, and work consisted of 10 hours per day, 6 days a week. “Pacesetters”, or skilled workers that sped up the assembly line earned as much as fifty cents an hour, but caused turmoil among the other less paid workers. Immigrants overflowed into tenement apartments in Packingtown, Chicago, next to stockyards and huge city dumps. In 1904, the Chicago meat packers union went on a strike, demanding higher wages and safer working conditions. The big four companies suppressed the strike and replaced the strikers, causing poverty among the strikers. An editor from appeal to reason, a popular newspaper at the

From 1865 to 1910, the Industrial Age was an interesting time of great economic growth and prosperity for the United States as a whole, however the American citizens who worked to push this positive chain of success paved the way and paid the cost for that very occurrence. In The Jungle, a family from Lithuania travels to the United States in order to gain a better living than what they had in their home country. During their time of adjustment to life within the United States, some members of the Rudkus and Lukoszaite family especially Jurgis Rudkus, experienced extreme hardship while attempting to develop their lives into a better state for the sake of their family’s wellbeing. Upton Sinclair opens a small window into the lives of hopeful and hardworking immigrants to reveal how America’s Industrialization Age hindered many from true freedom. This was due to a lack of care for employees and their wellbeing in the workplace, poor sanitary conditions that led to unhealthy living conditions for workers, and political corruption which was held over certain citizens in order to allow corruption to thrive, making workers remain powerless.

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

The Jungle written by Upton Sinclair in 1906 portrayed the harsh realities endured by millions of immigrants and working-class people during the Gilded Age. The book is centered around a Lithuanian immigrant named Jurgis and his wife Ona and their family. In the beginning, Jurgis and Ona have just moved to Chicago and neither speak English; yet, they have a sense of optimism about what their life in America will look like. In fact, when Ona tells Jurgis about her concerns that their wedding costs more than they can afford, Jurgis simply shrugs her off and states “Leave it to me; leave it to me. I will earn more money-I will work harder” [1]. This optimism found in the beginning; however, does not remain relevant throughout the rest of the novel. Numerous tragedies strike Jurgis and Ona’s family and soon, the happy couple loses their sense of optimism they struggle to even survive. Although, The Jungle is a fictional novel; the situations encountered by Jurgis and Ona is likely similar to what many immigrants faced during this time period. Sinclair uses his novel to make the argument for socialism and blames American capitalism for most of Jurgis and Ona’s

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.

Muckraking journalist brought many social issues of the day to the public’s attention and created a need for change. Upton Sinclair’s and his book, The Jungle brought the poor working conditions that came along with the industrial age into the public’s eye. In addition, this also caused the creation of strict laws for food and drug manufacturing as well as meat inspections. This also helped protect consumers from unsafe practices and deceitful labeling. Robert Hunter and Jacob Riis also wrote about the poor of America and their living conditions. This led to the development of social workers and agencies to help poor populations. Another journalist, Lincoln Steffens also brought corruption of the government into the light which put pressure

Analysis with textual evidence: Chapters 22-26 of The Jungle unravels the vulnerability of those who have lost everything, as they are easily influenced by the temptations of corruption. Sinclair emphasizes in his novel how even if one has clear morals, it will certainly waver if the individual confronts conditions he/she is not familiar with. This is noticeable through the actions of Jurgis after the death of his child when he transitions from barely surviving to living a life full of crime and wrongdoing all in the city of Chicago. “A month ago Jurgis had all but perished of starvation upon the streets; and now suddenly, as by the gift of a magic key, he had entered into a world where money and all the good things of life came freely” (Sinclair

Battles over power are constantly fought in societies. Inevitably, one group will find a way to rise up and assume authority over the others.As exemplified by Upton Sinclair in The Jungle, economy in twentieth century America was determined by power struggles between the wealthy capitalists and the impoverished proletariat. On a more individual level, the character of Jurgis is portrayed with the unceasing desire to free himself from the power of others and in turn gain power for himself.

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

The beginning of the book starts out at Jurgis and Ona’s wedding, or more specifically, the after party. This scene establishes how these two main characters look, and how they and the rest of the characters act. Jurgis is a big man with thick black hair that goes nearly to his eyes. He is very muscular and well built. Ona is a small woman; her whole body is able to disappear in Jurgis’s arms. She is soft-spoken, little in appearance and in personality. Cousin Marija is a big woman; she is established in the first part of the book as a very pushy and loud person.

Have you ever heard of the book called The Jungle? This book was written by Upton Sinclair, a muckraker. Harry Sinclair Lewis was a janitor at Upton Sinclair's socialist colony and he was influenced by Sinclair’s idea of socialism. Therefore, their ideas are very much alike even though their childhood backgrounds were completely different. Upton Sinclair had a great impact on society by addressing social issues in the early 1900’s, so what is the significance of Lewis’s works? Some of his major representative works are Main Street, Babbitt, and Arrowsmith (“Assignment Five -- Sinclair Lewis Babbitt”). These books played a big role on muckraking the social corruptions in his time period.