In the middle to late 1800s, there was a period in history commonly known as the Gilded age. It was called the Gilded age because immigrants from around the world saw the life in the United States as a magical world of easy living, but when they actually got to the U.S they were severely let down,and plagued with a life of suffering and hardships. In Upton Sinclair’s novel The Jungle he does an amazing job of illustrating one of the biggest conflicts in the immigrants lives. During this time, the manufacturing and processing industries were corrupt in many aspects such as their treatment of their workers, the process of the meat, and how the factories are run.…
In 1905, the Jungle first appeared in a Socialist newspaper in order to expose labor conditions in the meatpacking industry. The Jungle, a hot topic, holds the discussion of the harsh realities that labor workers face every day, making it hard for Upton Sinclair, the author, to find someone who would willingly publish the novel, although in 1906 Doubleday, Page, and Company agreed to publish the book.…
The Book “The Jungle” was written by Upton Sinclair, it explained the critical conditions of meat packing plants. It was a fictional story used to open the eyes of the readers that ate the contaminated meat. Readers then became concerned with the sanitation and health troubles that they may be facing and that they will face. They then began to attack Theodore Roosevelt with letters, full of their concerns with the meat they consumed. Due to the public’s reaction to The Jungle Roosevelt then sent a social worker and a labor commissioner to visit the meat packing plants. After the book, The Jungle, was written and printed, Theodore Roosevelt was highly disturbed by what he had read, he then called up Congress to create a law beginning “The Pure…
In the year 1906,Upton Sinclair published the eyeopening novel, "The Jungle". The fictional novel became immensely popular that not only the American people were reading it, but the twenty sixth president of the United States, Theodore Roosevelt, also engaged in reading it. The fictional novel takes place mainly in Chicago, where a family of twelve immigrants move from Lithuania to the United State of America in hopes of achieving their version of the "American dream". Once the family arrives in America they realize how difficult it is to escape poverty, let alone be considered wealthy. The novel addresses the American dream, poor working conditions, and socialism.…
Upton Sinclair has famously remarked, “All art is propaganda. It is universally and inescapably propaganda; sometimes unconsciously, but often deliberately, propaganda.” These words are especially befitting for Sinclair’s most famous novel, The Jungle. Sinclair’s novel follows the devastating collapse of an immigrant Lithuanian family as a result of the ruthless practices of capitalism. Thus, The Jungle is a severe critique of capitalism, and it possesses the intention of persuading readers to adopt the views of the socialism. With this objective in mind, the book has been heavily classified as a piece of socialist propaganda by many critics. Sinclair’s goal to convert readers to socialism failed for the most part, however, but the novel did help pass landmark legislation dealing with food safety conditions. The Jungle as a piece of socialist propaganda ultimately fails as the result of various factors including Sinclair’s biased argument against capitalism,…
Throughout Upton Sinclair’s novel, The Jungle, Jurgis Rudkus descends into an abyss of poverty as he journeys through the industrialized urban jungle known as Packingtown. Allowing a family of Lithuanian immigrants to be his farmhands, Upton Sinclair plants the seeds of socialism into readers’ minds, hoping for a prosperous season. Jurgis’s journey through the depths of American Capitalism tarnish his soul, leaving him a mere shell of his former self. The slow annihilation of Jurgis’s family at the hands of a cruel and prejudiced economic social system demonstrates the effect of Capitalism on the working class as a whole. Sinclair flawlessly presents Socialism as a new religion, portraying Jurgis as a Christ figure set out in Packington to baptize…
Workers and citizens today have Upton Sinclair to thank for the improved working conditions and higher regulations in the food industry. In The Jungle, Upton Sinclair uses vivid imagery and figurative language to expose the extremely unpleasant working conditions of immigrants and the Capitalist ideology of early 1900’s Chicago . A large Lithuanian family comes to Chicago in hopes for better life and work. The main character Jurgis is eager to work after a new marriage with his wife, Ona. The family of twelve quickly realizes that things are not quite what they seem. They are struck with hunger, poverty, injury, and death on multiple occasions.…
“These bare places were grown up with dingy, yellow weeds, hiding innumerable tomato-cans, innumerable children played upon them, chasing one another here and there, screaming and fighting.” This excerpt describes the area in which the children would play. Sinclair uses words like, “dingy” to emphasize the situation in which the kids grew up in.…
The Jungle (1906), by Upton Sinclair, is a story mainly about the life and turmoil of a man who came to American in hopes that he will become a free, rich man with a beautiful wife, Ona, and happy family; this man is the young Jurgis Rudkus, a strong, energetic Lithuanian whose personality and life are all changed several times over the coarse of the story. Major usually tragic events that occur in the story serve as catalysts for Jurgis's dramatic, almost upsetting, transformations. There were four major turning points in Jurgis's life: after he loses his job and is forced to work at a fertilizer mill; when he loses his wife and children; when he is incorporated into the criminal and political underworlds; and when he picks his life back up again. These events in his life all trigger reactions that are very much unlike the first Jurgis Rudkus we are introduced to his spirit squashed, his family either in despair, dying or dead, and all of his money gone, Jurgis's dream is thoroughly shattered.…
Sinclair's novel does accurately portray times and events that happened during this time period in the United States. To get this information Sinclair stayed in Chicago and investigated the issues for 7 weeks before writing the jungle. He was hired by a Newspaper to write the book. So the novel is accurate, but can be considered one sided because Sinclair's took a stance on some issues with the harsh working conditions at meat packing factories and also the cleanliness of the factories. The novel then starts talking about the corrupt politicians and the rising socialist party in Chicago, both real events. It puts the main character Jurgis (an immigrant) in the middle of all these events and really lets you get a feel for the times.…
The early twentieth century was a ferocious time, though we can't immediately think of a time in American history that has been peaceful. Upton Sinclair, in his novel, The Jungle, an expose of the meatpacking industry, became an enormous bestseller translated into seventeen languages within weeks of its publication in 1906. But while The Jungle has long been associated with food production, the book is actually a much broader critique of early twentieth-century business and labor practices in the rapidly growing cities of the United States.…
- Geography Matters... Geography shapes society which in turn shapes characters, setting, themes, tones, and so forth. This concept is also seen in reality. When I went to Key West, it was evident that the geography shaped those that lived there. Surrounded by water, paralyzing heat and humidity, those that lived there are relaxed and slow walkers and talkers, extremely frustrating for an impatient person such as myself. This concept applies to Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle. The Jungle takes place in Chicago. This enables Sinclair to reveal the horrible working conditions of meat factories as well as the corrupt owners of the factories. Chicago’s winters are harsh, which emphasizes the difficult times the family faces. Multiple times in the novel the family must walk in the frigid cold during a blizzard to go to work. The weather as well as their dedication to going to work highlights the high likelihood that the family would lose their job. In turn, this enforces the unforgivingness and inhumanity of their employers.…
Sinclair’s The Jungle is a novel that tends to advocate for socialism as a remedy for the evils of capitalism that has dominated a society. Upton Sinclair’s piece was written in 1906, at a time when many European immigrants had migrated to the United States with the hope of becoming prosperous in their lives. However, their expectations were not met as some of them ended up being unemployed and those who managed to get jobs like Jurgis Rudkus in meat packing industry suffered horrendous working conditions. The word jungle denotes the action of dog-eat-dog competition explaining the way workers are exploited through corruption and poor working conditions. In order to inform the reader about the ugly effects of capitalism, Sinclair bases his novel in this point to indicate how the rich people took the traits of animals by becoming inhuman and mistreat their workers in the capitalistic society. The workers were dehumanized and exposed to torture by working for long duration and given low wages as a form of appreciation. The use of this animalistic connotation has helped Sinclair to successfully address the need for socialist system. This is aimed at promoting equality and good working condition at workplaces.…
Upton Sinclair wrote the novel The Jungle along with several other politically-charged novels. Primarily motivated by politics, Sinclair wrote novels encouraging socialism and condemning capitalism. The literary period, the historical events, his family background, his job experience, and his political opinion inspired Sinclair’s desire to write The Jungle. The bold novel incited bold reactions of both support and criticism. Despite the opinions of the critics, Sinclair’s political outcry is still studied today in classrooms around the nation.…
The jungle was very instrumental in the reform of the packing industry and generated a huge public outcry that led to the new federal governments’ food safety laws. However, from my perspective, Upton Sinclair’s goal in writing the book was not to generate outcry, rather he was trying to show the general working conditions of people in the meat-packing industry and all other big industrial corporation and he was demonstrating capitalism is the root of the such misery. Throughout his book Sinclair reveals many shocking issues such as diseases, people missing fingers due to the environment they were working in, contaminated food being processed. Sick animals being slaughtered. The conditions of families and working kids at the ages where they shouldn't be working. Throughout the book the main characters…