Essay on The Jungle by Upton Sinclair, Jr.

The Jungle by Upton Sinclair is a vivid account of life for the working class in the early 1900s. Jurgis Rudkus and his family travel to the United States in search of the American dream and an escape from the rigid social structure of Lithuania. Instead, they find a myriad of new difficulties. Sinclair attributes their problems to the downfalls of capitalism in the United States. While America’s system was idealistic for Jurgis and his family at first, the mood of the story quickly transforms to assert that capitalism is evil. This theme drives the author’s message and relay of major issues throughout the entirety of the novel. The idea of capitalism and social Darwinism is to

Written at the turn of the 20th century, Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle took place in an era of unprecedented advancement in civilization where the American economy had risen to become one of the wealthiest on the planet. However, Sinclair asserts that the rise of capitalist America resulted in the virulent corruption and competition that plighted society into an untamed “jungle.” Shown by the corruption of the Chicago meatpacking industry, Sinclair highlights the repulsive filth of human greed that was created as a byproduct of the economic boom. The effects of industrialism and the rise of untamed capitalism is what raped the superfluity of workers, like Jurgis Rudkus, of the opportunity to uncover prosperity in America. Not only does The Jungle capture the brutality and acceleration of corrupt capitalism and ruthless Darwinism during the Progressive Era, it also prompts resistance and displacement of the existing political system in favor of a socialist revolution. Through the novel, Sinclair demonstrates how the deterioration of the American Dream was exacerbated by the capitalist greed and corruption that eventually drove Jurgis and his family into mental degeneration and despair.

In the book, The Jungle, Upton Sinclair advocates for the overall elimination of oppression and exploitation of workers and immigrants and the use of socialism as a solution. The book depicts, and illustrates, the events and outcome of Jurgis and his family from Lithuania coming to the America’s in hopes of a better life, from the ideology of “The American Dream”. Jurgis believes that hard work will pay off no matter the size of the problem, however him and his family realize that the America’s posses corruption, harmful working conditions, and oppression of the worker and immigrants. Sinclair uses examples to express the hardships and cruelty that lower class workers faced to allow the reader to perceive whether or not there is a need for change in the system. Frederick Douglass uses the same form of writing to bring light to the harsh and unjust experiences he endured in order to persuade and communicate why there is a need to accomplish what he is advocating for.

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

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.

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

Sinclair entered the world, in the state of Maryland, in 1878. Though he was technically born into the Southern aristocracy, the timing was such that his family was now feeling the ill effects of poverty due to the depressed state of the economy at the time. Upon his venture into college Sinclair began writing as a means to pay for not only the necessities of life, but also, as a way to finance his education. As a result of his research and writings, Upton became an avid supporter of the philosophy of Socialism. He found it necessary to immerse himself in the lives of the stockyard workers, of the era, to report fully the truths about industrialization. Due to the nature of his job as a journalist of the time, Sinclair was absolutely one of the best candidates, or experts on this particular subject matter. Upton’s approach to writing was that of a Muckraker, or journalistic approach, which clearly exposes the wrongs of industrialization.

In The Jungle, Upton Sinclair discusses the chaos of a meatpacking factory in Chicago through the observations of Jurgis. As a Russian who is begging to familiarizing himself with the North America, Jurgis is unaware of the customs of America. He starts by learning English, finding out that America had worked under democracy and learns more about how men with power execute it. During Jurgis’ trip, he talks about the filth that resided in the area, including “Bubbly Creek” and Durham’s Pure Leaf Lard. While the quote above describes how the workers were physically affected by their work, the bigger picture demonstrates how the process of meat packing is a chaotic— just like a capitalist government.

The Jungle missed its mark. According to Upton Sinclair, he aimed at the public’s heart, but by accident he hit it in the stomach. The societal and governmental reforms called for in The Jungle were for an improvement in workers’ conditions, adjustment in the corrupt systems of law enforcement and the legal systems, and for either a socialist revolution or the dismantling of capitalism; however, despite Sinclair’s intentions, he was largely unsuccessful in bringing any of these changes up to the priority of the public.

Upton Sinclair disguised himself and went undercover for seven weeks in the year of 1904. He entered the meatpacking industry as an everyday worker and observed the conditions of the meatpacking industry. He began work at one of the factories in Chicago’s slum district known as “Packingtown”. His main purpose was to expose these horrible conditions while also showing how poor Americans and immigrants lived during

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.

The Jungle is the story of a man named Jurgis Rudkus and his family, who is forced to face hardship and hardship working in meatpacking plants as they limp towards the “American dream”; a dream that was quickly crushed after their immigration from Lithuania to Chicago. An author who knows hardship all too well wrote the book: Upton Beall Sinclair. Sinclair was born in 1878 in Baltimore, Maryland into an extremely impoverished family who struggled with the impact of the civil war. Sinclair’s family was moved to New York when he was ten years old. His alcoholic father, whom ironically happened to be a liquor salesman, made the decision. One very good thing came out of Sinclair’s troubling childhood: his intelligence and passion. He began writing

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.

Upton Sinclair’s novel, The Jungle, portrays the plight of immigrants in the meatpacking district of Chicago. The idealistic American Dream seems to be that of a fiction novel as Jurgis Rudkas loses his way in the corrupt streets of Chicago. Although, Upton Sinclair reveals that it is not the fault in America, but the faults of capitalism that is the source of pain for immigrants. The Jungle, in nature depicts the harsh realities of immigrant life, however it is fictional in that Upton Sinclair shapes the outcome of the novel and where the blame should be placed for the horrific events of Jurgis Rudkas new life. Consistently Upton Sinclair uses socialism as the quintessential answer to the survival of the fittest economy of the United States.

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.