Upton Sinclair 's The Jungle

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).”

In the novel The Jungle by Upton Sinclair there are many ways that different literary elements are used to explore a political or social issue. One main issue has to do with the meat packing industry and how the workers are treated. In the novel, the main character had moved to America to find work and live the American Dream but his time in America was anything but a dream. Upton Sinclair uses many literary elements in his work to show imagery, metaphors/ similes and personification all why relating to the social issue of the packing industry.

Most famous people inspire authors to write books written about their achievements, however Upton Sinclair Junior did it backwards. Some of his ninety novels including an autobiography, and in particular The Jungle, changed America forever by using fictitious stories to depict the present issues at that time. Upton Sinclair was an author and activist in the early to mid 1900’s who was passionate about issues involving women 's rights, working conditions, and the unemployed. He wrote over ninety books in his lifetime, as well as countless articles and other works of journalism. As Sinclair grew up, he was exposed to both a lifestyle of poverty and wealth that shaped his world as well as his political views as a socialist, or someone who advocates the vesting of the control of the means of production and distribution, of capital or land in the community as a whole. Upton Sinclair was a controversial author who took a stand in history by vastly impacting the food industry, becoming politically active, and forecasting solutions to social problems.

The Jungle by Upton Sinclair was about Jurgis Rudkus who was an immigrarnt from Lithuania that came to the United States to discover his dreams, hopes, and desires. He took his family to Chicago to begin a new life. He worked in meatpacking industries that were unsanitary and brutal amount of hours that resulted into starvation. He was mistreated and realized the American dream wasn't as easy as it seemed. The book deals with disease, hunger, corruption, crime, poverty and death. “Leave it to me; leave it to me. I will earn more money – I will work harder.” This was said by Jurgis frequently because him and Ona always struggled with money and having a job but Jurgis never wanted Ona to stress about those problems. Jurgis always took charge

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.

It is an obvious safety hazard at the fault of the company, yet, he does not receive compensation. He is forced to beg for his job back. Marija loses her job drawing advertisements at a canning company when she joins a union. Ona’s boss, Phil Connor, harasses her. When Jurgis learns of the assault, he attacks the man and goes to jail. “They put him in a place where the snow could not beat in, where the cold could not eat through his bones; they brought him food and drink—why, in the name of heaven, if they must punish him, did they not put his family in jail and leave him outside—why could they find no better way to punish him than to leave three weak women and six helpless children to starve and freeze?” (Sinclair, 184-185). This quote shockingly illustrates that the prison is actually an environment far preferable to the cruel, filthy world of Packingtown. Sinclair’s famous descriptions of the repugnant meatpacking plants is meant to enhance the plea for better physical conditions. There are endless examples where Sinclair addresses the lack of rights for the working class. He suggests socialism as a possible remedy where the social classes would be even, but stresses the necessity of labor unions to maintain wages, workers’ compensation claims, and a safe and healthy work environment free from exploitation.

For centuries immigrants have left their homes and have journeyed to the United States in pursuit to live out the “American Dream”, an idea that the U.S. will provide people with a better life. However, this “better life” was not just given upon arrival, immigrants were not told the horrid experiences, and backbreaking hour, they would face in search for a better life. There is no better representation of this than Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle, this book is a very accurate representation of the life of the vast majority of people within the United States. During the time when this book was written there were few jobs, and the jobs that were obtainable were mostly factory jobs with horrible conditions that entailed excruciating hours. Aside from the dangerous conditions, the pay was next to nothing making it near impossible to afford food and shelter, let alone providing for a family. Immigrants quickly found out that the “American Dream” was not the glorified vision that they thought, rather more like the song “Welcome to the Jungle” by “Guns N Roses”. After examining the lyrics, you can tell the similarities Axl Rose and the rest of Guns N Roses were facing as they tried to make it in the music industry. “In the jungle, welcome to jungle, watch it bring you to your knees, I wanna watch you bleed,” once you get to the U.S. you’ll get ripped down to almost nothing and suffer from the horrible conditions that you are faced with. The Jungle takes all of the issues immigrants

At the beginnings of the 1900s, some leading magazines in the U.S have already started to exhibit choking reports about unjust monopolistic practices, rampant political corruption, and many other offenses; which helped their sales to soar. In this context, in 1904, The Appeal to Reason, a leading socialist weekly, offered Sinclair $500 to prepare an exposé on the meatpacking industry (Cherny). To accomplish his mission, Sinclair headed to Chicago, the center of the meatpacking industry, and started an investigation as he declared“ I spent seven weeks in Packingtown studying conditions there, and I verified every smallest detail, so that as a picture of social conditions the book is as exact as a government report” (Sinclair, The

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.

A wealthy nation is not a prosperous nation, as a nation can be prosperous without being wealthy. Wealth can be defined as capital or vice versa as having properties or resources and turning it into money. A country that is wealthy can have both rich and poor people living in it. There is an upper class, middle class and lower class, which individuals are associated to. We all know that individuals in the upper class have more resources, materials, properties and more money than the middle and lower class. The position that Upton Sinclair takes is that a wealthy nation isn’t a prosperous nation as many immigrants worked in horrible conditions and lived in miserable areas in her book “The Jungle”. I claim that a wealthy nation isn’t a prosperous nation because people have to look at the quality of human life and factors such as education, health care, inequality, basic needs, social goods and literacy are key aspects in determining if a wealthy nation is a prosperous nation. The first body paragraph of my essay will be focusing on Gross Domestic Product and how it is not the best way to determine if a country is wealthy or not. Also it will be addressing the issues of Qatar which is the richest nation and has the highest per capita. The second body paragraph will illustrate the drive for capital by Heilbroner and how it can produce wealth or misery. Upton Sinclair book “The Jungle” is a good example as it shows how Jurgis left Lithuania to go to America to become a wealthy

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

This can be proven in that he describes the calamities that would befall upon the immigrants as all occurring to Jurgis and his family. This causes Sinclair to become unrealistic in his descriptions and scenarios. For example, he describes in the novel the death of Antanus. “He went—he went out to play,” Marija sobbed, her voice choking her. “We couldn’t make him stay in. He must have got caught in the mud!”. Antanus is depicted as drowning to death in the mud, this is to describe the conditions of the roads where immigrant families would live and the true effects of child labor. This would obviously grab the reader's attention and cause them to publicize the issue. Therefore spreading

In the early 1900's life for America's new Chicago immigrant workers in the meat packing industry was explored by Upton Sinclair's novel The Jungle. Originally published in 1904 as a serial piece in the socialist newspaper Appeal to Reason, Sinclair's novel was initially found too graphic and shocking by publishing firms and therefore was not published in its complete form until 1906. In this paper, I will focus on the challenges faced by a newly immigrated worker and on what I feel Sinclair's purpose was for this novel.

Throughout the novel it is evident that factory owners care more about their profits, than the health of their workers. Jurgis would often work long shifts for little pay. In the story the Sinclair states, “And for this, at the end of the week, he would carry home three dollars to his family, being his pay at the rate of five cents per hour—just about his proper share of the total earnings of the million and three-quarters of children who are now engaged in earning their livings in the United States" (85). This quote proves that Jurgis was laboring long hours, every single day, to make no more than a child. Due to this Jurgis struggles to provide for his family and purchase necessities to live a healthy lifestyle. Eventually his lack of success leads him to drinking and corrupt activities. The corrupt practices of the factory owners are evidenced by child labor, sale of contaminated meat, and abuse of female workers. While capitalist gain financial earnings, the corruption that takes place destroys the heart and soul of workers throughout the stockyards, until all hope is lost.

In the early 1900's life for America's new Chicago immigrant workers in the meat packing industry was explored by Upton Sinclair's novel The Jungle. Originally published in 1904 as a serial piece in the socialist newspaper Appeal to Reason, Sinclair's novel was initially found too graphic and shocking by publishing firms and therefore was not published in its complete form until 1906. In this paper, I will focus on the challenges faced by a newly immigrated worker and on what I feel Sinclair's purpose was for this novel.