Role Of Socialism In Upton Sinclair's The Jungle

There are various examples of different political issues throughout The Jungle by Upton Sinclair. One political issue is that political officials don’t have any worries especially when it comes to maintaining a stable job while the working class people are at risk of losing their job at any moment. In the passage Sinclair writes “Before the carcass was admitted here, however, it had to pass a government inspector, who sat in the doorway and felt of the glands in the neck for tuberculosis. This government inspector did not have the manner of a man who was worked to death; he was apparently not haunted by a fear that the hog might get by him before he had finished his testing.

This is seen in the meatpacking industry where the conditions were horrific. Sinclair exposes the truth of Capitalism in America as hypocritical and deceitful. Furthermore, these changes in American society influenced the work of Upton Sinclair and particularly in “The Jungle”. Sinclair examines several societal changes during the turn of the century where his literature reflects the changes of a newly emerging

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.

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

The Jungle is book that takes the reader in a period in time where the “American Dream” was the only thing worth believing in the daily job struggles of immigrants in America during the early twentieth century. What is the American Dream? It is said that any man or woman willing to work hard in this country and work an honest day is capable living and could support his family and have an equal opportunity to success. Although The Jungle was taken account more on how the meat production was disgusting and unhealthy for production and consumption. However many missed the real message of this book in which Sinclair wants to engage the reader in particular scenario of the failure of capitalism. According to Sinclair, socialism is the only way out of the failure of capitalism. It is the way that all problems can be solved and works for the benefit of everyone where capitalism works against the people. The slow destruction of Jurgis’s family at the hands of a cruel and unfair economic and social system demonstrates the effect of capitalism on the working class. As the immigrants, who believe an idealistic faith in the American Dream of hard work leading to material success, are slowly used up, tortured, and destroyed.

In Upton Sinclair’s novel “The Jungle” the use of animalistic terms and connotations in the depictions of both the people and the politics created persuasive arguments for socialism and against capitalism.

Upton SInclair’s novel, The Jungle, is a novel based on the “Gilded Age” in american history. It is the life of a working man named Jurgis Rudkus and as the story progresses, it shows the corruption and dishonesty of the people during this time period, as well as their reasoning behind their actions. Also as the novel continued, it showed the author's inspiration for the title of this novel. Throughout the book, Upton Sinclair had scattered metaphors as to why Capitalism is corrupt and why Socialism is better. With subtle hints to social classes and how Jurgis progresses through them through corruption.

Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle was published in 1906 and was an eye-opening revelation of the workingman’s experience in the Chicago stockyards. Sinclair describes the horrible work conditions the workers endured and the unsanitary ways in which the meat was made and processed. Sinclair uses an immigrant family from Lithuania to help bring attention to the hardships and unfairness that the working class had to go through.

Capitalism can become corrupt. This is exactly what Upton Sinclair is trying to argue in his novel, The Jungle. Sinclair makes a strong case for Socialism, describing why capitalism is bound to fail. Instead of having the desired effect of making the world aware of Socialism, his tactics of muckraking and yellow journalism to expose the conditions in the meatpacking facilities took the world by storm. Sinclair’s vivid depictions of life in the Chicago stockyard changed the world in 1906, but it did not bring Socialism into the public eye as he had hoped; instead, it ushered in new regulations and standards in the food industry, but those regulations still are not enough to stop the corruption of meatpacking companies.

Workers were exploited in The Jungle by Upton Sinclair such as, child labor, unsafe working conditions, and wage slavery.

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.

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.

     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

Truly understanding the conditions of an immigrant’s life during the Gilded Age is a feat of remarkable magnitude for us who live such amazing lives today, but Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle achieves this astonishing task by describing the tortuous lives of Jurgis and his family as they toil to simply survive the insurmountable debts and problems society has placed upon them. Sinclair enthralls the reader with this story of small joys that are quickly overshadowed by depression, death, and anger. He effectively builds relationships between this small Lithuanian family which seems to be desperately fending off the whole world and the reader who just wants the best for them. The Jungle also details the conflicting opinions between the wealthy and the poor and the growing movement of socialism in America. While I do not agree with his idea of using socialism as a solution for the problems many immigrants have faced, Upton Sinclair has crafted a thrilling tale that successfully expresses the lives of immigrants during the Gilded Age and the amount of dangers they constantly faced.

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.