Summary Of Upton Sinclair's The Jungle

The Jungle was written in 1905 by Upton Sinclair. The renowned book follows the Rudkus family, immigrants from Lithuania, as they attempt to make a new life for themselves in America. Through the story of the Rudkus family, Sinclair exposes the meatpacking industry and relates the problems in America to capitalism. At the time, authors like Sinclair were known as muckrakers. A muckraker was someone who wrote about the issues of the country and aimed to expose these issues to the public. In The Jungle, Upton Sinclair provides historic details, events that relate to his life, and literary elements that show examples of realism.
The Jungle contributes historic details relative to what life was like in Chicago at the turn of the twentieth century.

According to Kristen Rouse, a contributor to Britannica, the Beef Trust which was a collection of top-selling meatpacking industries. Chicago’s Packingtown area was the main hub of the Beef Trust. Besides the Beef Trust, other businesses acted in the same crooked ways, such as the Coal Trust and the Oil Trust. These businesses all took control of industry by using illegal practices to dominate manufacturing. Following the publication of The Jungle, the Meat Inspection Act was signed and put into effect by President Roosevelt in 1906. The act required that the Department of Agriculture inspect all livestock that would be used in meatpacking companies

Sinclair experienced several of the same situations that the characters in the story went through. He was born in Baltimore as an only child. Following the conclusion of the Civil War, Sinclair’s family lost nearly everything they owned (Millen-Penn). The Sinclairs fell into a poverty-stricken hole just as the Rudkus family in The Jungle did when they came to America. Sinclair’s father became an alcoholic in attempts to escape the reality of life. Similarly, The Jungle’s main character, Jurgis, turned to alcohol after his wife passed away. ( 145) According to Robert W. Cherny, a professor of history, Sinclair began writing in an attempt to make a living for himself. In 1905, Sinclair was approached by an editor of the Appeal to Reason, a popular newspaper, and was asked to write an exposé on the meatpacking industry. In order to pull off the exposé, he would have to gain knowledge about the industry from the inside. He dressed as a factory worker and wore overalls in order to avoid suspicion from the other workers and businessmen. In this way, Sinclair relates to the characters of the book because he examined the corruption of the industry first-hand. He spent months witnessing the horrible conditions in the meatpacking plants, and then he went away to a cabin to write for six months (Cherny). Sinclair’s goal in publishing The Jungle was to create sympathy for