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Upton Sinclair's The Jungle

1429 Words6 Pages

After spending months in the stockyards to study their abhorrent conditions, Upton Sinclair penned The Jungle, his most popular work, which depicts an immigrant family and the hardships they face upon moving to America. Over the course of the novel, the protagonist Jurgis Rudkus slowly loses his faith in the American dream and subsequently becomes a socialist. This blatant political bias is often cited as justification for banning it throughout the world. However, despite many criticizing its push for socialism and lack of artistry, the novel has significance in upper-level classrooms as it possesses literary merit and significance in historical and real world contexts. The Jungle has spurred controversy since its release due to its socialist …show more content…

The book is undoubtedly most known for exposing the meat industry as endangering the American populace, bringing food inspection to the “forefront of American consciousness”, and leading to the Meat Inspection Act and the Pure Food and Drug Act (Lerner). This is undoubtedly noteworthy- after all, it is the first exposé on the food industry and the well-deserved reason why the novel is so frequently mentioned in history textbooks. However, the true purpose of The Jungle is to serve as a “round of ammunition in the battle for social justice” and advocate the use of “individual progress put to use for the common good”, making it an important criticism of capitalism and a part of the Progressive Era (Napierkowski & Stanley). Because it exposes injustices which America has yet to remedy, there is relevancy to the text and, therefore, a need to read it in classrooms. The reformist nature of the times is effectively captured through Sinclair’s descriptions of the meatpacking industry and its unfair treatment of workers in a dramatized way that differentiates it from other muckraker texts (Bielakowski). It documents America’s industrial and immigrant experience through Jurgis and his family, like the incredibly low wages to the hazardous conditions in the factories, while also calling for social welfare and unionization. Considering the highly competitive economic society that has persisted, and still persists, The Jungle has yet to lose its

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1476 Words | 6 Pages

Innocent Belief Famously known for his novel, The Jungle, Upton Sinclair changed American life in the early 1900s without a doubt through his literature. However, many don’t realize that Sinclair reformed American life in more than one instance, through more than one book. At times, he even reached beyond his realm of literature to discuss other needed adjustments. Besides the serendipitous changes he created for the meat packaging industry, Sinclair’s other actions throughout his life are, subjectively, important to American history, according to Anthony Arthur. In his biography, Radical Innocent: Upton Sinclair, Arthur reveals his bias towards Sinclair, while supplying a relevant nature to his writing across an in-depth review of Sinclair’s

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778 Words | 4 Pages

In Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, Jurgis and his family attempt to survive in a malicious society. In this jungle of a town, rotten meat is being packaged in order to save money. Throughout the novel, the immigrants are faced with greedy capitalists who take advantage of the family’s ignorance and naivety in order to make money. The symbols of corruption, a jungle-like setting, and the tension between family and a work-based lifestyle transparently contribute to the unifying theme of anti-capitalism. In other words, this book is not art; this book is propaganda.

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601 Words | 3 Pages

The Jungle written by Upton Sinclair was an expose on the life of those who lived in Packingtown, Chicago. Packingtown was where most of the people who was looking for work lived, it was a very crowded city. Job openings were scarce and most of the jobs were very unsafe. Most of the people in this part of town were poor, so they did not really have much doubts of food,. The Jungle exposed the horrific work conditions, the poor food quality, and the deceitfulness of the business owners.

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863 Words | 4 Pages

Subject: The Jungle mainly focuses on poor living conditions for the working class in 20th century Chicago. I learned how corrupt politics in this time period were, how gross the meatpacking industry used to be, and how hard immigrants had it when they came to America. This text is controversial because it gives suggestion that socialism is the better government system. This would split the sides into those for capitalism and those for socialism. Occasion: The Jungle was written in 1906 by Upton Sinclair.

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921 Words | 4 Pages

As industrial strength grew and technology advanced, labor in America changed. Machines replaced many of workers’ old duties and some skilled laborers who had been previously valued became easily replaced. Immigrants who were willing to work under poorer conditions flooded into the United States, big businesses grew, and political machines whose interests were not that of the people occupied the government. Laborers worked ten hour shifts, six-day workweeks, and started work as children. In The Jungle, by Upton Sinclair, he describes the painful and vigorous work in the meat-packing industry, saying, “The hands of these men would be criss-crossed with cuts, until you could no longer pretend to count them...

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713 Words | 3 Pages

Phelps suggests, “First, students love it... even undergraduates who consider history “boring” respond to The Jungle” (2). The incredible detail of the events that occurs at the meatpacking industry that Sinclair uses in this novel has made even uninterested students interested. Sinclair criticizes the unfairness of capitalism as well. Phelps comments, “The objective was to break the unions, drive down wages, and speed up processing” (2). The purpose of capitalism was to allow the upper class to remain in power, such as Connor and Scully, while restricting the working class, such as Jurgis and Ona, from obtaining enough money to support their families.

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1060 Words | 5 Pages

However, readers at the time were not very concerned about the petty immigrants living on the lower rung of society. Rather, they cared about what affected them most: the condition of the meat they were eating-- and had been eating-- for years, that were produced by some of the very factories mentioned in Sinclair’s novel. For the majority of The Jungle’s readers, the fact that poor immigrants were being exploited was not bothersome. Instead, the fact that the food that readers had been eating for years contained the power to kill them seemed shocking, pushing the nation into a worried frenzy. Readers were disgusted by the facts they were reading, catalyzing the creation of administrations like the FDA.

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1021 Words | 5 Pages

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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1899 Words | 8 Pages

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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213 Words | 1 Pages

The Jungle by Upton Sinclair is an expose of immigrant labor. Sinclair wanted to spark outrage at the practice of selling diseased meat to the public and to arouse sympathy for laborers who worked in the unsanitary conditions of the warehouses. Throughout the novel Sinclair portraits different scenarios in which capitalism is seen as destructive and unjust. The scenarios vary from child labor for personal gain to the willingness of selling diseased meat to the unsuspecting public. I believe The Jungle’s main theme is the evil of capitalism and how the only antidote it has is Socialism.

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915 Words | 4 Pages

Upton Sinclair’s, “The Jungle,” illustrated crucial aspects of American history, some more effectively than others. However, it is apparent that “The Jungle” effectively portrayed the realms of capitalism and the industrial crisis exceptionally. This aspect of the industrial issue was further reinforced with tons of descriptions of the harsh working conditions, which further led to the development of many socialistic ideologies and strikes. It was obvious that the high authorities within the meat-packing industry only cared about one thing; profit. These private-business owners reinforced the unsanitary, inhumane operations of a capitalistic society; one that gave little remorse for those working unhealthy loads of hours.

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653 Words | 3 Pages

The Jungle by Upton Sinclair gave great insight into many issues that were evolving in America during the Progressive era. It is based around telling the story of an immigrant family who comes to America for a better life. They soon realized the American dream wasn’t what it seemed. Sinclair wrote The Jungle to expose the appalling working conditions in the meatpacking industry, and the poverty in America. He aimed at the public's heart and by accident hit it in the stomach.

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1433 Words | 6 Pages

The Jungle In the literary work, The Jungle, the author, Upton Sinclair makes a commentary on the deceitful and dark truth of the American dream. This was achieved by using the canned meat that was produced in Packingtown as a symbol to represent the dream that all the immigrants had about their new lives in America. As the story progresses, the reader, along with the protagonist, Jurgis will discover that the American dream lies cloaked behind a shroud of beautiful lies that masks the vile truths that are the American dream and the canned “beef” processed by the corrupt meat business in Packingtown.

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2149 Words | 9 Pages

A Time for Struggle and Change Upton Sinclair’s book, The Jungle, depicts the struggles of Lithuanian immigrants as they worked and lived in Chicago’s Packingtown at the beginning of the Twentieth Century. The United States experienced an enormous social and political transformation; furthermore, the economy, factories, and transportation industry grew faster than anyone had ever seen. Immigrants and migrants were attracted to city life for its promise of employment and their chance at the American Dream. The poor working class had little to no rights, and they grappled with unfair business practices, unsafe working conditions, racism, Social Darwinism, class segregation, xenophobia, political corruption, strikes, starvation, poor housing,

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1202 Words | 5 Pages

During the time period of the 1900’s, the meat packaging industry in Chicago, as Sinclair mentions in his novel, The Jungle, was a very unsanitary and extremely dangerous workplace that lacked much more than just a few safety precautions. Simple things, such as enforcing hand washing or workers’ rights were unheard of in the working environment. It is clear that Upton Sinclair was trying to expose the worker’s horrendous labor conditions in order to improve their situation, along with the introduction of socialism. Upton Sinclair, in his novel, talks about how a Lithuanian immigrant by the name of Jurgis Rudkus, and his family, travel to Chicago trying to make ends meet. However, they soon realize Chicago was not the place for that.

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