Comparison of the Jungle and Fast Food Nation
The Power of Money and Greed in Society The Jungle by Upton Sinclair was published almost century ago and it showed the Americans the problems that existed in the early nineteenth century, the industrialization timeline. Sinclair’s target was the workers who were mistreated in various workplaces, such as the meat packing companies in Chicago, so that they may be treated fairly. Sinclair wanted a future society where common people (those mostly that worked at the workplaces) to form a group and rule with their own rules which would be just in their eyes, much like a union. However, after the book was published, the readers were more traumatized by the fact of what the people were consuming in their food than the social problems. Sinclair says, “I aimed at the public’s heart…and by accident I hit in the stomach.” (pg3). After several years, Sinclair fighting the injustice system, finally society began to change and started to form unions in various meatpacking industries. However those unions didn’t last too long as fast food industries started impact the society in the 1960’s. Now almost century has past and another book was written, Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser. Fast Food Nation faces somewhat similar issues like The Jungle, for example, the poor treatment of employees, the importance of mass production, and the immigrant issues. Once again, after Fast Food Nation was published, I believe people were more shocked of fast food than the concerns of the social problem that was mentioned in the book.
The main problem of both books is the major industries like meatpacking and fast food companies. In Fast Food Nation it was the fast food industries and mass producing of food products and in The Jungle it was the meat packing plant that controlled the major part of the society. In both cases I believe it is the greed of money and power giant industries that causes social problems in workplace.
Generations has passed since The Jungle was published but yet in
Cited: Sinclair, Upton. The Jungle. Boston/New York: Bedford/St.Martin 's, 2005. Print.
Schlosser, Eric. Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2001. Print.