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Allegory And Symbolism In Upton Sinclair's The Jungle

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The Jungle
The success or failure of an author is usually determined by their ability to connect to their audience. One prominent author during the late 19th and early 20th century was Upton Sinclair who wrote on of the most successful books of it's time; The Jungle. It is placed in Chicago during the late 19th century during the Industrial Revolution. The story follows Jurgis Rudkus and his family who are Lithuanian immigrants who come to America to work in Chicago. There they face enormous difficulties: harsh and dangerous working conditions, poverty and starvation, unjust businessmen who take their money, and corrupt politicians who create laws that allow all of this to happen. In The Jungle, Sinclair uses his characters, plot and literary …show more content…

Sinclair successfully uses metaphors and symbolism to give the reader an image in their mind. One instance is during the winter when the family is struggling to survive and maintain their jobs at the same time. Because they could not afford a heater, Jurgis and his family would huddle on the bed but still “the cold which came upon them was a living thing, a demon-presence in the room...They could feel the cold as it crept in through the cracks, reaching out for them with its icy, death-dealing fingers, and they would crouch and cower and try to hide from it, all in vain” (102). By depicting the winter as creeping in through the cracks of the house, Sinclair conveys the cold as an unavoidable being. Each of the metaphoric description of Jurgis and Ona’s winter nights portray the cold weather as an entity, rather than a simple phenomenon within nature. The metaphors allow Sinclair to more dramatically describe the damaging causes of poverty that literally …show more content…

Although their are originally 12 main characters in the book, many of them die and Sinclair doesn't take the time to talk about other characters besides Jurgis. This doesn't allow a reader to bond with the characters in the book and really care about them. This indifference causes the reader to dismiss the main goal of the book because they weren't able to care about anyone and the terrible things that happened to them in it. Later in the book after Jurgis has lost his job due to injury and Ona has not been coming home or coming home late. Jurgis investigates and finds out that her boss Connor has been threatening and raping her. Jurgis then storms over to his office and attacks him. “In a flash he had bent down and sunk his teeth into the other man's cheek; and when they tore him away he was dripping with blood ,and little ribbons or skin we hanging out of his mouth” (159). After Jurgis loses his temper he attacks Connor; a very important businessman, and goes to jail. In jail he is unable to support his family and the younger members of his family soon perish. Overcome with grief after hearing this, Jurgis sets himself hard into his work. But when he sees Connor again he goes into a maniacal rage, taking his other cheek and going back to jail. He is so ashamed that after he gets out, he doesn't go back to his family, and even more

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The Jungle by Upton Sinclair follows the main character Jurgis Rudkus who is an immigrant from Lithuania. Jurgis immigrated to the United States and made his way to Chicago in order to follow the path of a legendary hometown name, Jokubas, who supposedly made a lot of money in the states. Upon reaching the United States and arriving in Chicago they realized it would be much harder to establish an income in a city they weren’t familiar with. Their luck changed when they happened upon the infamous Jokubas and found out he ran a local delicatessen in the stockyards in Chicago. Jokubas helped them find a place to sleep for the night in a boarding house while they used those first days to look for work in order to move to a nicer place of living.

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All over the world, individuals would want to alter something in their past for a more enriched life. One’s precedent actions will inevitably bear an impact on future resolutions. In Upton Sinclair’s novel, The Jungle, the main character, Jurgis Rudkus, departed Lithuania, with his beloved and her family, for a more prosperous life in America, but after countless of trials, ended up destitute. His decisions throughout the tribulations will determine the outcome in a world full of adversity. However, how Jurgis acted on one of his ordeals engendered a great burden that he still bears in the present, and that this link into the past depicts Sinclair’s theme of corruption.

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While challengers to Upton Sinclair’s radical methods for reform label him a socialist foe of American values, Sinclair’s efforts where truly aimed towards publicizing the plight of the average citizen in America. Sinclair helped Californians and citizens throughout the nation realized that their voice and their vote were a powerful political tool. Sinclair’s so called radical policies established a set of Democratic values within California that is still present today. California, The Golden State, was known as the land of milk and honey. It was the home of the gold rush, and industries such as oil, agricultural, and Hollywood flourished.

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In the novel, “The Jungle” by Upton Sinclair, Jurgis Rudkus plays an important role. Jurgis goes on a journey with his wife to a new country looking for a job and ends up losing more than he ever thought he could lose. The character, Jurgis Rudkus, is a strong willed man who faces many difficult situations on his journey to find a job and to reunite with his in laws.

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The Jungle is a 1906 novel written by the American journalist and novelist Upton Sinclair. Sinclair wrote the book to describe the harsh conditions in his life. I would describe Sinclair's vision of the American dream is to be free and to do as you want. He thought that it was supposed to be different and you should be free , and to do whatever you want to do. In the book he went and moved to start over in a new life.

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When Upton Sinclair, a progressive era muckraker, wrote The Jungle in 1906, he was attempting to bring knowledge of the horrific conditions in Packingtown to the average citizen. His revelations on the terrors of Packingtown helped to slowly improve the lives of the immigrants. Sinclair’s pursuit of knowledge relates to the slowly growing knowledge of the characters in The Jungle. Throughout the story the characters find themselves in many tragic circumstances that could have been more easily avoided if they had been more aware of their surroundings. The immigrants are full of a false hope for success that disillusions the reality of their life.

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In the novel, The Jungle, by Upton Sinclair, the author uses events and things that occur as a metaphor or a symbolic meaning. Although, the meanings of these metaphors and symbols are not directly stated, as a reader, it's very easy to interpret them as the story continues on and the plot deepens. One of the events in the story that has another meaning behind it is the opening scene of the novel. This is where we are introduced to some of the characters, the setting, and it is our first glimpse of the plot and where it truly all begins. The opening scene of the novel is Jurgis Rudkis and Ona Lukoszaite's traditional Lithuanian wedding feast, although they are very young.

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Upton Sinclair portrays the economic tension in the United States during the late 19th and early 20th centuries through his novel “The Jungle”. He used the story of a Lithuanian immigrant, Jurgis Rudkus, to show the harsh situation that immigrants had to face in the United States, the unsanitary and unsafe working conditions in the meatpacking plants, as well as the tension between the capitalism and socialism in the United States during the early 1900s. In the late 19th century and early 20th centuries, there were massive immigrants move into the United States, and most of them were from Europe. The protagonist, Jurgis Rudkus, like many other immigrants, have the “America Dream” which they believe America is heaven to them, where they can

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Jurgis has Ona Lukoszaite who is his wife (Sinclair, Pg. 27) as like James who has Mae Braddock that he had two kids with working on a third. After a while in Chicago Ona and Jurgis have a baby boy named Antanas Rudkus who they love (Sinclair, Pg. 110) mean while James has a little girl named Rosie who he gives his food to so she is not hungry. As time goes on for Jurgis he starts to lose his family first Ona and his second baby then Antanas drowns and that is his braking point so he ran (Sinclair Pg. 188, 209, 236, 247, & 255).

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From the very start of the novel Jurgis was a very caring person. Jurgis took pride in helping other people and always found a way to do it. He provided everything for his family such as support, money and protection from the horrors that his family encountered in Packingtown. Jurgis and Ona immigrated to America hoping for a better life but instead ran in to struggle after struggle.

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Excerpts from The Jungle by Upton Sinclair, Document Analysis The Jungle, by Upton Sinclair, is a renowned source of political fiction that pioneered the movement of food safety in the United States. The Jungle was first published in a socialist newspaper in 1905 and then later adapted into a novel in 1906 after popular demand. Sinclair initially wrote the exposé as a way to change the unfortunate circumstances of immigrant laborers, whose working conditions that were believed to be unacceptable for any laborer in the industry. Sinclair leaves short references of his political opinions in the novel in various locations throughout the text “As if political liberty made wage slavery any the more tolerable!”

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The influence of Upton Sinclair upon our world cannot thoroughly be measured in just a few short paragraphs or even one study. Sinclair 's work for which he was most famous, The Jungle, written in 1906, was just one of many examples of one person 's ability to change the world they live in. While the topic of The Jungle was bringing to light the horrible working conditions associated with the meat industry, the work accomplished so much more. Of course people were enraged when they found out they were probably eating rat meat along with their favorite meats but they also began to see how much hardship immigrants were going through just to try and make a living in the country at the time. Sinclair didn 't just interview people to get the

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The weather plays a factor because, during the winter it is time for rain and for the most part the days are always gloomy and people are stuck at home. Moreover, in this chapter, the weather demonstrates this factor and helps illuminate the feeling of imprisonment and being in your own little

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Upton Sinclair wrote a book from the early 1900’s called The Jungle. The book is centered around a family who immigrated to America. The family goes through a lot of hardships and troubles during the industrialization era. Life back then was hard for the average person. Most people did not have much money to buy food and necessities, and many lived in rural areas, mostly immigrants.

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They take you on a journey full of dream-crushing brutality and deception of what seems to be the ideal place to work and built a life. They settle near the stockyards and meatpacking district, where Jurgis finds his first job at Brown’s slaughterhouse. Jurgis, thinking the U.S. offered more freedom, finds that the working conditions there are very

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