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The American Dream In Upton Sinclair's 'The Jungle'

1310 Words6 Pages

Haytham Alqasmi
2.16.18

The Jungle Essay

Upton Sinclair’s “The Jungle” is a novel about an immigrant family that tries to achieve the American Dream. This family goes through many hardships and America is not what they imagined. The protagonist and “leader” of the family, Jurgis Rudkus, Ultimately cannot cope with the horrible things he’s endured, and pursues a new lifestyle. While the Novel’s introductory passage prepares the reader to believe the Immigrants achieving the American dream will be the main theme, later details suggest that Sinclair’s personal desire for money is his most important concern while writing this book as shown by his use of excessive disturbing imagery in the meatpacking industry, and it 's overdone amount of gory, …show more content…

In summary, Sinclair’s the Jungle tackles problems about the capitalist system and uses instances of literary elements to connect two concepts, like animals in the Slaughterhouse and immigrants in the US, but these are not Sinclair’s primary concern. Upton Sinclair wrote the Jungle with a desire for money. This claim is proven by the overwhelming instances of impossible levels of misfortune, excessively gory imagery, and disturbing descriptions of the food you eat and how it’s truly prepared. The main character’s dad dies, then his wife, then his son, from drowning in mud, then his other family member gets eaten by rats. To have that many horrible things happen to one family is impossible. Sinclair also said that the meat that America ate had dead rats, rat poop, and rotten, poisonous meat in them. While these claims are true, the imagery he used was to a point that is no longer meant to sell you an idea, but to sell you a book, and convince you to tell your friends about this book, who in turn buy it. Lastly, Sinclair’s background as a muckraker who’s had practice in commercial nonfiction, with his use of dramatic and grabby titles to sell magazines, is seen in his writing of the Jungle. All of these examples prove that Sinclair wrote the Jungle with, above all else, a thirst for money and to sell as many books as he could, proving it to be a work of commercial

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