ipl-logo

Upton Sinclair The Jungle Themes

656 Words3 Pages

The novel The Jungle, by Upton Sinclair is regarded as one of the most important novels of the twentieth century. It is considered an important and valuable analysis of several themes relating to turn-of-the-century life in America. One of the more important themes to be highlighted by Sinclair are the negativities of capitalism, an economic system that is based around profit being made through private businesses, in America.
Sinclair publicizes many of his realistic ideas and findings as a muckraker into the novel. The corruption of capitalism and its unfair practices are expressed heavily in the life of Jurgis, a Lithuanian immigrant who moves to America looking for good wealth, and his family. One of the signs of capitalism that we first see is the deceitfulness of real estate. Jurgis and his family have been many times mislead by the real estate company, first …show more content…

He goes on to describe the source of the family’s income, their work. Jurgis and many other family members are found to be working at multiple jobs for they would not survive on just one’s pay. Each person is hired to work for a meat producing related job, more specifically Jurgis is working directly for the meatpacking as a part of a factory line that kills animals. Sinclair now introduces the fact about health conditions relating to products being released into the public. A quote from the book describes the meatpacking, “This is no fairy story and no joke; the meat will be shoveled into carts and the man who did the shoveling will not trouble to lift out a rat even when he saw one." (Sinclair 146). This shows that government regulation is absent in businesses, even in bigger companies that release food in large quantities into the public. Sinclair calls attention to laissez faire, or the lack of government regulation in businesses especially ones that produce directly to the people of the

Show More
Related
746 Words | 3 Pages

Sinclair says: “There would be meat stored in great piles in rooms; and the water from leaky roofs would drip over it, and thousands of rats would race about on it. It was too dark in these storage places to see well, but a man could run his hand over these piles of meat and sweep off handfuls of the dried dung of rats. These rats were nuisances, and the packers would put poisoned bread out for them; they would die, and then rats, bread, and meat would go into the hoppers together.” (Chapter 14). This quote tells how the meat was kept before it was sold to the people and that the company cared nothing about the health of others.

Read More
792 Words | 4 Pages

Sinclair sheds light on how unsanitary the meat processing industry was, using words to paint a mental picture in the minds of the reader leaving them with a bad taste in their mouths. This story eventually led to the creation of the Pure Food and Drug Act after people went crazy reading what was described in the book. Although no specific facts were provided other than the contents in the book itself, it held true accounts of what the industry was like. Sinclair would speak of the rat poison being left close to the meat, or the use of the rotting meat to be sold. With this story people began to see the gruesome conditions by which their food was being handled.

Read More
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.

Read More
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.

Read More
1261 Words | 6 Pages

In “ The Jungle”, the author Upton Sinclair states that “ I aimed at the public's heart and by accident I hit it in the stomach”. This means that Sinclair wanted to muckrake the Meat Packing Industry to seek attention for the workers, but instead food became a bigger concern. The characters Jurgis, Ona, and Marija with fellow family members are Lithuanian immigrants who came to PackingTown in hope for a better future, however they came to realize that the whole town is run by capitalist. Although Sinclair intentionally uses metaphors and similes to depict the characters struggle in the horrible living and working conditions in Packingtown, his purpose is undermined and overlooked by his use of realism to depict the food process.

Read More
724 Words | 3 Pages

Upton Sinclair was arguably one of the most influential writers of the 20th century. His novel, The Jungle, drove congress to pass the Pure Food and Drug Act. Upton Sinclair was one of the key figures in the Progressive Era. The Jungle sets change in motion by repeatedly shocking the public by exposing the harsh working conditions, the substandard housing, and the ways in which the Beef Trust cut corners in their products.

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
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.

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
502 Words | 3 Pages

Sinclair continued the tradition and wrote King Coal and The Coal War about Colorado coal fields. Sinclair’s literature continues to influence us today. The Jungle is a muckraking novel exposing the challenging hardships immigrants in industrialized cities like the meat packing district faced in the early 20th century. Sinclair aims to show the reader the harsh injustices immigrants faced upon emigration into the United States.

Read More
634 Words | 3 Pages

During the 1900’s working conditions were undeniably horrible. In Packingtown everyday got more difficult as the days went on. In the meat packing business things were supposed to be done quick. Inside the factories packing, chopping, inspecting and people actions didn’t mix. Not only did the people in the factories suffered, the people outside of the factory also suffered.

Read More
575 Words | 3 Pages

A target for criticism for decades, Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle has been controversial since its first publishing in 1906. Literary critics commonly discredit the novel’s formal features; usually associating its failures to Sinclair’s political ideology. While historians give blame to external events, especially in political context to the novel’s popularity. In either argument, it is agreed that the novel is a loser (Wilson).

Read More
175 Words | 1 Pages

In Sinclair's most graphic example of business abuse — the sweeping of poison, rats, and rat dung into the food vat — he is most likely employing a form of hyperbole, an extended exaggeration to make a point. Admittedly, abuses within the system existed, many conditions were unsanitary, and workers were apathetic; but Sinclair once again employs literary license to gain support for his characters and his political ideology. As is the standard of naturalistic fiction, the stock characters in The Jungle are driven to drink or prostitution. In an industrialized society, no other options exist.

Read More
1143 Words | 5 Pages

His book caused many readers to understand what capitalism can do to a country. His contributions to American history were raising awareness about the effects of capitalism and contributing to the laws that protect US citizens today. For example, “Upton Sinclair’s novel The Jungle, led to the passage of the Pure Food and Drug Act and the Federal Meat Inspection”(“Gale Encyclopedia of U.S. Economic History”). The Jungle provided vivid and horrifying examples of the brutal effects of capitalism and tied in how it caused poverty, hard working conditions, and

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

More about Upton Sinclair The Jungle Themes

Related Topics

Open Document