ipl-logo

Book Summary: The Jungle, By Upton Sinclair

1552 Words7 Pages

The Jungle by Upton Sinclair

The Jungle by Upton Sinclair truly exemplifies the difficulties immigrant’s families run into when pursuing the “American Dream.” The Jungle can be evaluated as a primary source as it uses direct evidence in Chicago in PackingTown district. PackingTown District is known to be Chicago’s biggest meatpacking industry. Written during the Progressive Era it revealed the many dangerous and horrible conditions that are in the meatpacking industry. It uses vivid description of diseased, rotten, and contaminated meat, which ultimately shocked the public. The things that occurred during the Progressive Era should never be overlooked. These big businesses such as the meatpacking companies, U.S Steel and Oil company all …show more content…

They even neglecting the conditions their workers were in. All these big companies cared about was eliminated competition, setting high prices, and treated workers as salves. With the help of workers striking and journalist especially Upton Sinclair book the Jungle was able enact new federal food safety laws. The Jungle shows how immigrants are deceived by the image of America of a better life. The book is written from narrator perspective over the lives of Jurgis and his family a rather large family of his wife and himself packed in Chicago desperately trying to survive the harsh condition that they are in. Jurgis and his family are put in the center of this district which began to corrupt each and everyone of them little by little Over and over again Jurgis runs into conflict and could never find rest and assurance of peace. No matter how hard he fights to help his family and himself achieve the American …show more content…

If you have work you have to be there no matter the circumstance. In The Jungle it mentions that after the wedding that “Promptly at seven o'clock this same Monday morning they will every one of them have to be in their places. If one of them be a minute late, he will be docked an hour's pay, and if he be many minutes late, he will be apt to find his brass check turned to the wall, which will send him out to join the hungry mob.” Everyone including Ona who got married could not take a day off for her wedding even without pay. It was almost impossible to find employment for the elderly, Jurgis finds out that its pointless to go look for a job for his old man Dede. It was also hard for Marija to get a job because she was a woman ‘she had marched about Packingtown all day, entering every door where there were signs of activity. Out of some she had been ordered with curses; but Marija was not afraid of man or devil, and asked every one she saw—visitors and strangers, or work-people” Unlike others Marija determination was able to land her a job of painting food cans, not many are this lucky. One the worst thing that could happen to an individual seeking employment is getting blacklisted. Jurgis got denied over and over just because he was blacklisted for accepting a union offer cause of the unfair

Show More
Related
216 Words | 1 Pages

The Jungle was written by Upton Sinclair and published in 1906. I chose this book because it’s been mentioned in multiple History classes I’ve taken. I took it upon interest mainly because it is about the brutal and unfair treatment of immigrants in labor and because it exposed the meat industry. (it exposed both). Sinclair strives to expose the danger in capitalism by vividly describing and exposing the ranging and brutal treatment of immigrant laborers who searched to live the American dream but found misfortune instead.

Read More
1370 Words | 6 Pages

Jurgis started off firmly believing on his American dream of having a better life where he would work hard and earn lots of money. He took up work in a meatpacking plant where he had to sweep blood and body parts of slaughtered cattle. The job was unsafe and the conditions were bitter but he continued working a he was happy to get a job so fast. In the packinghouses the condition were deplorable, every part of the animal was used to make profit. Even spoiled meat was marked as good and sold out to public.

Read More
1144 Words | 5 Pages

His family has also suffered, but not to this extent. After the death of his wife and son Jurgis was finished with the life he had created in Packingtown. He decided to escape to the countryside, and leave everything and everyone behind. There Jurgis feels free, but the ghost of what he had left behind soon caught up with him, and he began to feel guilt for those he left behind. At first I found this to be quite selfish of him, but after he started to feel guilty about his actions I began to sympathize with him.

Read More
1522 Words | 7 Pages

Isabelle Wilson Carey, Hour 1 14 January 2015 Social, Political, and International Repercussions of Upton Sinclair’s “The Jungle” They were called floorsmen, trimmers, beefboners, or butchers. Stuck with the dirty work, these men hacked and sliced, severing jowls from shoulders from ribs. Backs hunched, they repeated the same motions, preparing these unidentifiable creatures for consumption. The danger of their labor was clear to them from the horrifying accidents they had all witnessed, however they had a job, so no one was complaining.

Read More
1021 Words | 5 Pages

Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle was a novel popularized and published during the Progressive Era with the purpose of exposing the horrific working conditions of the Chicago meat industry. Sinclair exposed the unsanitary practices of the meat industry and the dehumanization of the workers. The harsh realities written in Sinclair’s novel reached the hearts of many Americans furthering the push of many progressive activist’s demands. In the end this created an everlasting lawful change with the help of President Theodore Roosevelt.

Read More
914 Words | 4 Pages

Matthew DeBacker Mr. Shinabarger AS American History 19 October 2015 Corruption in The Jungle The Jungle by Upton Sinclair, was a very impactful book during the industrialization age and still impacts people today. It is considered one of the most important books in the Industrialization Age in America. Upton Sinclair was a muckraker and wanted to draw attention the the terrible things that went on in the meatpacking industry. So he highlighted several key themes such as poverty, capitalism, and immigration during that time period

Read More
1651 Words | 7 Pages

Ariel Ortiz Mr. Martinez September 30, 2014 The Jungle The Jungle by Upton Sinclair caused quite a stir in the United States. This book opened the eyes of so many to what laborers were going through during that day and age. Throughout the novel, he was trying to illustrate problems that were going on during that period of time.

Read More
845 Words | 4 Pages

Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle “hit [the readers] in their stomach” rather than in their hearts like he had hoped to. Steve Trott thoroughly writes about Upton Sinclair’s successes and failures as a writer in his piece, “Upton Sinclair and The Jungle.” Sinclair had written the novel in hopes of drawing attention to the “appalling conditions and squalor of wage-laborers under capitalism… [b]ut his objective was lost on the public, overshadowed by unsanitary conditions and inadequate regulation in the meat processing plants” (Trott 2). Because Sinclair based the novel off of a fictional character, Jurgis Rudkus, his reliability fell short.

Read More
1060 Words | 5 Pages

Thus, Sinclair’s purpose of writing The Jungle failed to bring readers to advocate for the rights of workers trapped in the low wages, unsafe working conditions, and long hours of meatpacking factories, but rather, succeeded in opening the country’s eyes to the meatpacking practices that went on behind closed doors and the establishment administrations to protect the public from these unscrupulous

Read More
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

Read More
976 Words | 4 Pages

The Jungle is a novel that is famous for its depiction of the inhumane conditions in the meatpacking industry. Sinclair’s use of graphic descriptions of the working and living conditions of the workers in the industry, particularly the immigrants, was a significant factor in the book’s popularity. For example, Sinclair wrote, “They worked

Read More
424 Words | 2 Pages

He became completely disconnected with his family and was even involved in some criminal activity. At the ending of the novel, Jurgis becomes revived after entering into a socialist party. The party believed that factories and companies should belong to the people that actually

Read More
634 Words | 3 Pages

The Bosses squeezed and drained the life of those men. In the book The Jungle written by Upton Sinclair he described the life of a struggling family try to work and stay alive in the filth. The working conditions in the factories were unsafe, unsanitary and people made little. The purpose of this book was for people to become socialist other than capitalist.

Read More
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.

Read More
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.

Read More

More about Book Summary: The Jungle, By Upton Sinclair

Related Topics

Open Document