...In The Jungle, by Upton Sinclair, the author depicts the story of a young and hardworking man, Jurgis Rudkus, and his family’s struggles in the American economic system of the early twentieth century. Coming from Lithuania with the hopes of a better life, Jurgis’ family lands in Chicago with the pursuit to prosper in the new and exciting land. From the start, the family encounters trouble: scammers in both Lithuania and America deplete the family’s savings, the saloon-keeper at Jurgis and Ona’s wedding overprices them for the amount of alcohol guests have consumed, and the conditions of Packingtown are not what they expected. In the ensuing chapters, the family’s luck changes from bad to worse when a multitude of family members die and jobs are repeatedly taken away from many of the group. Sinclair demonstrates through the optimistic and naive Rudkus-Lukoszaite family that American capitalism is destructive to the common worker and the immigrant class. In the proclaimed “wage slavery,” Sinclair describes how the immigrant population was "dependent for its opportunities of life, upon the whim of men every bit as brutal and unscrupulous as the old-time slave drivers” (Sinclair 126). In Chicago, the immigrant...
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...Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle Upton Sinclair wrote his book The Jungle in 1906. This book was a huge success. Sinclair was born on September 20, 1878, in Baltimore, Maryland. Sinclair grew up poor with his mother and father. His mother sent him to his richer family on his mother's side. He started to write children’s stories and humor pieces in magazines at age 14. He also he started writing stories at age 16. At 18, he graduated from New York City University. After the success of The Jungle, Sinclair started to write more books with a political message. To write the book, The Jungle, Sinclair had to go undercover at a meat packing factory and expose how the industry had mistreated workers and had unsanitary conditions. The Jungle, by Upton Sinclair, is the book that he is most known for because it was able to change the law, it fit into a popular kind of writing called muckraking, and his political views were different from most peoples’ in America....
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...“The Jungle” American Protest Literature Analysis 211 In Class Essay In the early 20th century, America was in the process of becoming the most industrial cities in the world. With the increase of factories across the country, stories were becoming more popular. One the most well-known stories from the novel titled “The Jungle”, written by Upton Sinclair. In the American Protest Literature text, I was able to see certain chapters of Upton Sinclair’s novel which peeked my interest. Upton’s techniques of persuading the readers, during that time, were able to have the realization of the harsh conditions of working the factory, however many of the readers have had a negative opinion towards his novel, believing it supporting communistic views. While I was unable to read the full novel, I was able to read certain important chapters from “The Jungle” by reading its section in American Protest. The story is about the Sinclair’s main protagonist named “Jurgis”, who is an immigrant from Europe. When he moves to America with his family, he starts to witness the harsh...
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... For example, in the novel The Jungle, Upton Sinclair exposes the unwholesome and unsanitary practices of the meatpacking industry during the early 1900s. Furthemore, Sinclair was a 'muckraker' or journalist who exposed the immoral practices of the meatpacking industry in order to push for mandatory meat inspection; however, President Roosevelt viewed the novel as an exaggeration of the truth of the matter and personally inspected the industry's practices themselves. Thereafter, Roosevelt discovered...
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...immigrants of the past who came to America educated and with financial resources, this new group of immigrants came to America in search of jobs, political freedom, and to escape the mass poverty in Europe. This new group of immigrants were often poor and uneducated and were likely considered peasants in their own countries. Jurgis Rudkus, a fictionalized character in Upton Sinclair's novel, The Jungle is an example of such a person. Jurgis is from Lithuania and comes to America in search of the American dream. At the beginning of the novel Jurgis comes to America as any other typical European immigrant. He dreams of America as being a land where a man with little can rise through the ranks and ultimately become a man with wealth and prosperity. Jurgis quickly realizes that industrial America is a land of heartache, where a willing man is exploited and used as energy to fuel the never ending industrial machine. At the end of the novel Jurgis learns that the great land of America has its limitations, but at a cost as he loses his wife and child and spends stints in jail for trying to defy the machine. Thus, the novel, The Jungle exemplifies how immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe in the early 1900s could not fully realize and achieve the American dream no matter how hard they toiled and worked in the brutal American factories of the time. A jungle is an area of madness and chaos where animals roam free and one either eats or is eaten. Upton Sinclair titled his...
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...Upton Sinclair was an American author who made many changes that contribute to today’s society. He was born on September 20th, 1878 in Baltimore, Maryland and passed away November 25th, 1968 in Bound Brook, New Jersey. You see, Sinclair has been through a rough road throughout his life. However, the obstacles he faced only made him achieve so much. What hurt him, made him stronger. For example, his father, Upton Beall Sinclair, was an alcoholic and eventually drank himself to death. Alcohol left Sinclair fatherless with only one parent. When his father was around, the money situation was very limited considering his father spent his earnings on alcoholic beverages. His family was very dependent on his father. Upton Sinclair has once stated , "...as far back as I can remember my life was a series of Cinderella transformations; one night I would be sleeping on a vermin-ridden sofa in a lodging house, and the next night under silken coverlets in a fashionable home. It all depended on whether my father had the money for that week's board.". Sinclair’s...
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...In 1906, Upton Sinclair's Book The Jungle was published in book form; it had previously been published as a newspaper serial in 1905. Few works of literature have changed history in the United States so much as The Jungle did when it was published. Does Sinclair Lewis make a compelling argument for socialism in his book, The Jungle? I think that the answer to this question is going to be dependent on what you end up believing about socialism. A die hard socialist is probably going to point to Sinclair's ending with zeal and passion because it proves that Jurgis could only find a home when renouncing capitalism and its perverse interpretation of the American Dream. I think that Sinclair believed in the socialist ending of his novel. Yet, I want to pivot the question a bit. While the socialist claim might not be persuasive, like Marx himself, Sinclair is probably more eloquent on suggesting that the current capitalist system, the one being written about at the turn of the century, is in desperate need of repair. His persuasion might lie in his critique of capitalism more than his embrace of socialism. “The Jungle by Upton Sinclair, exposed the nauseating conditions of Chicago’s meat packing industry.” (Goldfield, David R. The American Journey: A History of the United States.) He couldn't have been very happy that the book gained fame for a different reason, but nonetheless it did gain a significant amount of fame and get that message of socialism is better than communism...
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...The show has gotten excellent reviews, collecting many Emmy nominations and a Peabody award. And it’s brought to light many problems of today’s women in prisons: unfair use of solitary confinement, racial bias, homophobia, the blatant sexism between male guards and the female prisoners, etc (Kohan). While the show may be fictional in some aspects of the characters and situation, the conditions are real, and the book is true. Like muckraker Upton Sinclair, Piper Kerman wrote her memoir to pull back the disgusting curtain on the condition of women prisoners, and it’s worked (Kerman). Orange is the New Black is an excellent example of an unconventional source of muckraking. It brings to light issues of the reality, while capturing the attention of audiences with its exceptional acting and...
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...paved with gold, rather they were welcomed by streets paved with trash and the air filled with smoke and pungent odors, as presented in the book The Jungle. The Jungle is a novel written by Upton Sinclair that displayed the severe working and living conditions that immigrants were forced to deal with. Upton Sinclair portrays the economic tensions and historical processes in hand in the late 19th, early 20th century showing us factory conditions, housing conditions, and political corruption through the eyes of an immigrant family. Writing the novel through the eyes of the family allows readers to feel sympathetic towards the family, and is why this book was so effective in bringing attention to the circumstances that the lower class was put in. The Jungle is about an immigrant family from Lithuania who came to the United States being promised a better life, however as soon as...
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...On February 26, 1906, Upton Sinclair released The Jungle, a novel written about the life of a Lithuanian family moving to America and the hardships they faced there. Sinclair, a Socialist and a muckraker reporter wrote the novel in hopes of gaining supporters of the Socialist party. What he ended up doing was single handily cause the formation of the Food and Drug Administration after he showed the nation what was really happening with their food. Yet looking at the work as what it’s meant to be, an exposure of the negative effects of a capitalist society on the impoverished citizens, was Sinclair’s indictment a fair assessment. The novel The Jungle, follows the story of Jurgis Rudkus and his new family as they move to America in search of...
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...As a youth Sinclair found his zeal for social and moral justice, these ideas were fostered by Reverend W.W. Moir who had a great influence over him.1 Sinclair was an unremitting force exposing societal issues in an era of progressive reform. The quote “Good literature substitutes for an experience which we have not ourselves lived through." means that works of literature can substitute for an experience in which we the reader have not endured ourselves. His most notable work was The Jungle in which he exposed the American public to the inhumane and hazardous conditions of the meat packing industry and the injustices faced by immigrants. Upton Sinclair was born on September 20, 1878 in Baltimore, Maryland to an alcoholic father whom he was named after and his...
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...The Jungle In Upton Sinclair’s novel The Jungle, the main character Jurgis brings his Lithuanian family to America in order to seek prosperity. They take up residence in Chicago, where they find employment in Packingtown. There the family undertakes risky tasks under unstable conditions, giving them a troublesome realization that their ideal life in America was far from reality. Not long after, a bitter winter and sickness hits the family, showing them that sacrifices have to be made in order to make do. Through his novel, Sinclair aspires to connect with the readers in an emotional appeal, however his gruesome details of the meat-packing industry cause the readers to focus more on what could be on their own plates at home. Sinclair, aiming directly to the heart of his readers, successfully did so when Jokubas toured the family through Packingtown. Instead of being a thriving homeland full of assurance, Chicago proved to be a...
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...The Jungle by Upton Sinclair Compared to Modern Day Meat Processing The theme of Upton Sinclair’s novel The Jungle is that capitalism is the devil. In the novel, capitalism is made out to be absolutely evil, one reason being that they (the meat companies) willfully put contaminated meat on the market for the oblivious consumers. There are several ways that the meat-packing practices from the novel are similar to how meat is processed today. The first similarity is that slaughterhouses were and have been treating animals very brutally; also, the slaughterhouses in the book were just as unsafe to work in as the slaughterhouses today. People are taking major risks just by going to work. The second similarity is that contaminated meat is being sold and served to the consumers. Another similarity is that if you get hurt on the job and become disabled for several months, a lot of companies will stop paying you or possibly lay you off. The last similarity between The Jungle and modern-day meat processing is that meat companies can and will sue you or throw you in jail if you “spill the beans” or defend yourself or your family. First of all, the slaughterhouses and meat factories are just as filthy, cruel, and unsafe as the slaughterhouses and meat factories from the early nineteen-hundreds (time period in which The Jungle takes place). The novel says that animals are brought into pens, suffer, and are slaughtered. In slaughterhouses today, animals are rounded up, placed somewhere...
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...Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle and Eric Schlosser’s Fast Food Nation expose working conditions and animal slaughter in the food industry. Even though these texts were published years apart, they both share similar details and goals. Sinclair is a muckraker who exposed political and social problems during the Progressive Era, and Eric Schlosser is a journalist. Both of these excerpts express the problems that workers faced, mostly immigrants, and the gruesome details of animal slaughter in the food industry. Both publications share similarities and differences in their goals, details to prove their points, and effects of their publication when dealing with the hidden aspects of the food industry. Both excerpts’ goals are to produce outrage...
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...Whenever you hear "The Jungle" most think of a tropical forest full of thick, brightly colored plants and trees containing various types of animals. However, the book The Jungle is a novel written by the American journalist and muckraker Upton Sinclair. Sinclair wrote the novel to expose the harsh conditions and exploited lives of immigrants in the meatpacking industry of Chicago. So how do the two relate? The novel's title symbolizes the competitive nature of capitalism. The life of living in Packingtown is like living in a jungle, in which the strong prey on the weak and all living things are engaged in a violent, brutal fight for survival. In the book, you only see the use of the word "jungle" once. This being when Jurgis has been drinking and decides to sleep with a prostitute. The novel also seems to compare Jurgis' sexual desire to that of a beast in the jungle. Therefore associating jungles with uncontrolled desires. This being said, the awful conditions of the workers in Packingtown are the result of the uncontrollable human desire for money. The Jungle is about bringing to light human greed and the social damage it does. The images of "beasts" that live in the jungle also depicts violence and brutality – another huge theme of Sinclair's analysis of life in Packingtown. Sinclair describes capitalism as destructive because he shows it...
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