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Summary Of The Jungle By Upton Sinclair

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The Jungle is a political fiction novel written by an American novelist,Upton Sinclair, and its based on the harsh living conditions of immigrants and the poor meat industry's in Chicago 1906. This novel is about a couple, Jurgis and Ona, that moved to Chicago for a better life, but in reality they have moved to some place that is dangerous and filthy. The couple got married and lived a life that wasn't quite as they expected once they moved. Ona ends up getting pregnant and ends up dying as she is giving birth and Jurgis has to go to a job everyday risking his own life due to the harsh working environment in the slaughterhouse industries, which leads him to many problems physically and mentally. Sinclair then goes back and forth to tell many …show more content…

Sinclair wrote this book to get people to realize the harsh conditions, so there would be a change in America's society and that is what he did. Sinclair showed readers how badly wage was decreasing for laborers and the lives of the working that couldn't get any worse. Due to the needy families needing the income of their children, which was as needed as much as their own income, lead to an awful outcome which was that families could not stop working their children neither could the government because these families were in need of their children's income just so that they could survive enough to put food on the table. Jobs were decreasing due to the rush, which was causing the wage of laborers to decrease. Many people were left with no jobs or with not enough pay to support their families. With all this happening Sinclair proves to the readers that the working class cannot rise in the capitalist system because …show more content…

He tells his readers the harsh conditions of capitalism to give out a specific style that the readers will develop as crucial and eventually Sinclairs answer to this will be socialism. Sinclair gives Jurgis this hard working, loving father character that portrays him as a socialist character and it turns out to be very realistic to us readers. Since Sinclair was a very socialist individual he focused on a lot of the life of laborers and meat industries. When Jurgis first moved to America he states, ¨ignorant and helpless, and would remain at the mercy of exploiters until they were organized¨ and that's when Jurgis realized how much socialism plays a part in society and work industry. We can say he was writing a very political book as well. Although his main focus was on the life of immigrants he talked about the issue a lot which was within the system, his style was very political and he used pathos to appeal to his readers emotionally and try to get them to understand how hard life was back then for immigrants to hopefully make a change in society. Some way he finds a way to contribute society, class, suffering, political power, provierty, and etc all into this book and have them all relate to Sinclair's political intentions. Mainly he uses poverty in the book to explain Jurgis as a character and why jurgis actions are the way they are and as one of

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All the elements and conflicts presented in the book leads to the theme of socialism. Upton Sinclair is a supporter of the socialist move. To the point of writing this work is to elicit sympathy for the working class and build support for socialism. Everything within the book is criticizing capitalism; the only remedy for the evils of capitalism is socialism (Sinclair). In capitalism, the upper-class keep getting richer by exploiting the lower working class, leaving a wide gap between the wealthy and the impoverished.

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For example, the main character, Jurgis Rudkus, had sprained his ankle from the poor conditions in the factory, but the factory owner refused to pay him because he couldn’t work. Then when he finally healed, the factory refused to give him his job back so he had to work at a fertilizer plant (Sinclair). The popularity of this book made people aware of the factory conditions and join together to improve the terrible conditions in the factories, get

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Upton Sinclair's 'The Jungle'

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The Jungle Book Review In 1906, Upton Sinclair published The Jungle to expose how rough the life of immigrants coming to the United States was. This book also exposed unsanitary conditions in meatpacking industry. Upton Sinclair’s main focus in this book was to show how tough life was for immigrants coming to America, but instead he disgusted Americans by the conditions of the meat factories. The book begins with the main character, Jurgis Rudkus, and his wife Ona, having their marriage reception in Chicago. This gives the reader background information about the characters, where they are from, and why they have come to American.

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What Sinclair meant was that he tried to get the people upset about the working conditions but instead, they worried about the contaminated food and then went to the government about it. The heart was supposed to be the immigrants, harsh conditions as well as the contaminated food but then he hit the stomach which was that unsettle “food”. He didn’t achieve his purpose which upset the stomach. That when they went to the authorities, they called for a reformation of the inspection policy. The people were too worried about what about they put into their body, instead of the workers that had the worse end.

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This factory abused the hard work of thousands of immigrants. Being the writer he was, and his goal, Upton Sinclair decided to write a book, aiming to convince the U.S population into socialism by writing about this meat-packing factory. In order to collect information, he worked undercover in the meat-packing factory for seven weeks during 1904. The factory was horrible, he said. Many of the workers were horribly hurt, with damaged hands, and there were thousands of rats in this factory, transferring more diseases than one could count.

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He wanted to make others aware of the extreme conditions while working in the meat industry. In his book, he pointed out things such as diseased and rotten meat in hopes of leading to new food and safety laws. One reason for Sinclair to write this book is to let readers be known of harsh conditions that the immigrants in this time were facing. Another thing is he wanted to show advantages of socialism to help with any problems in the cities at this time. Sinclair tries to accomplish this by writing a story about an immigrant family and how they come over to America looking for a better way of living.

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One individual who expressed this view and promoted socialism was American author Upton Sinclair. Sinclair witnessed poverty in his lifetime in the aftermath of the Civil War and sought to strengthen the power of the working class. He exemplifies these economic beliefs in his fictional novel called The Jungle. The novel traces the journey of a Lithuanian immigrant named Jurgis, who faces unemployment, poverty, and discrimination as a working class man in a capitalist society. Sinclair emphasizes that capitalism is detrimental to the working class, and he proposes that socialism is the solution to economic inequality and the lack of power among the working class.

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Literature is where one could go to explore the highest and lowest points of human society, find the absolute truth, and support it using personal experiences and knowledge. Such is the case with writer Upton Sinclair, who grew up experiencing both sides of wealth and class divisions. By reflecting on his experiences with class division, Upton Sinclair’s exposé not only sheds light on the fight for workers rights but also incorporates a Socialist philosophy. Upton Sinclair was born in Baltimore, Maryland, on September 20, 1878. From birth Sinclair was exposed to dichotomies that would have an effect on his young mind and his thinking in later life (“Upton”).

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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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Sinclair bases these struggles on things that happen to Jurgis and his family. One example that the author describes is how thousands of men wait outside the workplace just to get a chance at a job. “All day long the gates of the packing houses were besieged by starving and penniless men; they came, literally, by the thousands every single morning, fighting with each other for a chance for life…. Sometimes their faces froze, sometimes their feet and their hands; sometimes they froze all together— but still they came, for they had no other place to go” (Sinclair 92). Another example the author displays is when Ona, Jurgis’s wife, dies after giving birth.

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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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