...Where there is light, there is dark. In the eatly 20th century, American industrialization developed rapidly. It made a prosperous society of America, but it also made the dark. Social evils hiding behind the peosperity were reflected by the the lowest level workers lives. “The great corporation which employed you lied to you, and lied to the whole country—from top to bottom it was nothing but one gigantic lie.” was written by Upton Sinclair in his book, The Jungle. In his book, he tells about a story of Jurgis Rudkus, who comes to America with full of hopes and dreams with his family from Lithuania and finds a job in Brown's slaughterhouse in Chicago. But life isn’t match with his American dream. Catastrophes ensuse to him. His loses his job because of work injury. His wife, Ona, is raped by her boss. Jurgis is under arrest because of beating the boss. Ona dies in dystocia and his son drowns. Everythings keeps eroding his hopes and determination and makes him become an vagrant and a liar. In the end, Jurgis becomes a wandering worker, living with the sad memories. In the story, Sinclair describes the central idea that a social system emphasising on money and status only bring oppression, hopeless, inhuman and injustice to the underclass. In order to make the central imoressive, Sinclair uses symbolism and metaphors to develop the central idea. In The Jungle, Sinclair uses symbolism to discride the situation of the underclass workers. Sinclair uses slaughterhouse to repersent...
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...their food was being made. The Jungle was so important to people that they wanted laws to be enforced regarding the way that their food was being made, but it was not enough to change their political views. These laws were created in 1906 and called the Pure Food and Drug Act and the Meat Inspection act (Whitelaw 84). This is why Upton Sinclair is so famous for his book The Jungle. It was able to change the law and not a lot of books are able to do that. Not only was Sinclair's book famous for changing the law, but it was also famous because muckraking was a type of writing that was popular at the turn of the 20th century. Muckrakers were, “a brave cadre of reporters who exposed injustices so grave they made the blood of the average American run cold” ( Us history).This term was used by President Roosevelt in a negative way because he believed muckrakers “exceeded the bounds of common decency in their fervor to root out corruption.”(Whitelaw 83). This type of writing would make The Jungle very popular because it was already very popular at the time. Upton Sinclair’s book, The Jungle, is his most famous because muckraking was a famous style of writing, so he joined a popular type of writing where other authors were already famous. In conclusion Sinclair wrote this type of book for different types of reasons. After Sinclair wrote the book, lots of things changed with what his book had to say. Once Sinclair wrote the book, he did not have control over how people would read it....
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...The Jungle by Upton Sinclair was one of the few works of art in American history to have a massive and important impact on society. Sinclair was part of an era when people witnessed all that was wrong and corrupt in business and politics, they stood up against it. The Jungle was criticizing the wage of the working people. Upton Sinclair revels intense representations of the shocking lack of hygiene involved in the labor field such as the meatpacking industry in Chicago. After this was exposed it resulted in public outrage to the point where the Pure Food and Drug Act and the Meat Inspection Act was passed by congress. The Jungle became part of the era when the industry was quickly progressing and millions of immigrants moved to the...
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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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...Hassaan Zainul Ms. Luongo English 10 2 November 2015 Upton Sinclair is one of the most recognized authors in history for his writing of “The Jungle”. Upton Sinclair was born is Baltimore, Maryland and he was raised in New York City. His parents were poor while his grandparents were rich and his aunt was wealthy marrying a millionaire. Sinclair often spent night at his grandparents’ house this allowing him insight on how the rich and the poor lived. Sinclair was a keen student, he entered New York City College at the age of fourteen, and he funded his education by writing newspaper and magazine stories. By the age of seventeen he was adequately successful at that time, owning his own apartment and able to give financial support to his parents....
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...The Jungle by Upton Sinclair was a very interesting novel, for example, throughout the novel Upton Sinclair tells a story about a family who immigrated to Chicago from Lithuania who wanted to purse a better life. Furthermore, Sinclair uses objective language because he gives all the details of the ups and downs of the events of Jurgis family having to face in the U.S. meat-packing industry. The intended audience of The Jungle is the citizen of Chicago who wants to know more about historican events. In addition, Sinclair uses serious and informal tone in the novel. For example, Sinclair uses serious tone to show how the truth behind business of Chicago jobs, also he uses informal tone to demonstrate the business of Chicago as well. However, there are enough evidence offered throughout the novel, Sinclair uses imagery to give readers a sense of what to think of when they are reading the events of the Jurgis and his family. On the other hand, I think that Sinclair wanted to accomplish the goal of informing the nation by bringing attention to the underprivileged conditions in slaughter houses in Chicago and the process they handled the business, people, and livestock. Therefore, I also believe his source is an opinion, because of the reason of him publishing the book, which is notifying the Americans about the truth behind slaughter houses. All things considered, main goal of writing the novel was to give all the poor details about the business of the city of Chicago. No doubt,...
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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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... 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 childhood was a rollercoaster. As for his mother, Priscilla Harden, was the total opposite from Sinclair’ father. Harden hated alcohol and didn’t even drink tea or coffee. At the age fifteen, books comforted Sinclair and he began to write novels. In 1897, Sinclair was enrolled at Columbia University and he became very determined. On the school grounds, Sinclair learned to read French in the time span of six weeks all by himself...
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...This Jungle was composed in 1905. Upton Sinclair abhorred huge business and was against capitalism.Sinclair wanted America to be a communist country (that implies everybody makes the same sum and there are no rich and no needy individuals). The novel's title alludes to the American wilderness of processing plant, where just the solid survive and individuals act and get treated like creatures. The principle character Jurgis Rudkus is Lithuanian and gets pushed around by the framework. He begins off at a low point and goes into an existence of wrongdoing. At that point he is spared by turning into a communist. this novel exhibit how organizations controlled individuals' lives and how heaps of men were voracious. Upton Sinclair utilizes the life of Jurgis to show and portray the outsider dream turned out badly as opposed to the promise land, America is a position of hardship. Jurgis and his family landed in America and landed crappy production line positions. Jurgis spouse Ona landed a position sewing and 14 year old Stanislovas landed a position, as well. They perceived how degenerate America was the point at which they were contracted by these folks who took a cut of their pay and butchered tainted meat and transported it to the general population. They family all purchased a house which they couldn't manage. discovered the house wasn't even another one. The entire family just gets jolted around. With all these employments, they could bear the cost of a wedding for Ona and Jurgis...
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...I’m sure that, if you’re at all familiar with the American Labor Movement, you’ve at least heard of Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle. If you haven’t, however, it’s an exposé of the terrible working conditions faced by immigrant laborers in Chicago a little over 100 years ago. Though I’m not writing to rehash a chapter in a US History textbook, The Jungle signifies something important that was often left overlooked— the lack of care that many companies had for their laborers, as jobs were in high demand and employees were as replaceable as a box of tissues. The novel signified how laborers used to be treated and the lack of humanity that plagued them. Luckily enough, a shift in beliefs allowed for a movement that demanded that laborers are an integral...
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...They introduced the division of labor into their meatpacking plants, replacing the skilled “all-around butcher” with a “killing gang of 157 men divided into 78 different ‘trades,’ each man performing the same minute operation a thousand times during a full workday.” The book portrays the objects poverty, harsh working condition and often dangerous unsanitary living condition. The jungle showed the public what was going on the factories. It showed how owners had no regard for worker safety nor public safety. People getting fingers cut off and being mixed in with meat bad/ diseased food so on. It impacted the world by showing how immigrants were being mistreated and how hard life really was in the United State. The working condition were dangerous. Following the end of the Civil War in 1865, Chicago’s various, scattered livestock markets consolidated into one large market, the Union Stock Yard, on the South Side. This market was change from the benefit of taking over across the world. During the 1870s and 1880s, the United States wrested new territory from American Indians west of the Mississippi. Railroads extended their reach throughout the West, allowing farmers and ranchers both to settle new lands and to ship their cattle, sheep, and hogs to national markets. Chicago became the transfer point where the agricultural produce of the West reached buyers for consumer markets in the East. With the bring together of the stockyard, the work of processing meat itself...
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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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...In Upton Sinclair’s novel, “The Jungle”, the life of a man named Jurgis and his family is documented as they immigrate to America in the very early 20th century. What the book is intended to do is shed light on the issues of America in its early stages dealing with capitalism and socialism. It shows the struggles that Jurgis goes through just to attempt to make ends meet for his family and live an average life. While his goals and aspirations take a turn very shortly after his arrival, this is a sound example of life for immigrants during this time. They were promised wealth and greater opportunities, and upon their arrival this is not what they were set up to receive. In Sinclair’s novel, he attempts to show the negative features of capitalism such as the unfair treatment the working class men received from business owners in the United States through a typical immigrant family living in Chicago, and how one mans goals change very drastically ones he learns of how wonderful he decides socialism is. Upon arriving in America, Jurgis Rudkus was filled with confidence and overjoyed with the promise that he believed stood in front of him. He came from Lithuania with his fiancé and children to chase after the historical “American Dream.” Specifically, Jurgis wanted to form a modern, improved life for he and his family. Him and his fiancé wed, and are immediately put into debt from the wedding, but they still carry high hopes about the awaiting reward they would receive from moving...
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...Upton Sinclair’s novel, The Jungle, does not take place in an actual jungle. It actually takes place in the early 1900s in Packingtown, Chicago at a meat-packing industry, with the purpose to inform the literate citizens of that time of the gruesome working conditions and contamination of the meat industry. Although it takes place in that location, Sinclair shows the jungle-like atmosphere through literature with different word choice and allegories. For example, during the wedding in the first chapter, Sinclair describes Jurgis “frightened as a cornered animal,” comparing a character to an animal that could be in an actual jungle. Another example is when Jurgis describes, “Marriage is a trap,” comparing a human relationship to an animal catcher. When Jurgis first comes to America, he sees the thousands of pens of cattle in the stockyards, waiting to be killed; he describes it as, “so many cattle no had ever dreamed existed in the world.” The stockyard is filled with them as far as the eye could see. He watches as waves of hogs go up the chutes and then go to their death by their own weight carrying them down. As they see this spectacle, they don’t suspect anything and are amazed at the efficiency of it all; Sinclair quotes, “the sight suggested to them no metaphors of human destiny.” They had no idea that they were going to be just like the cattle and hogs because they were immigrants and unskilled laborers. In the early 1900s, was the second major immigration in the country...
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...Piyarat Siripoksup HIS 17B Paper I October 23 2014 The rise of the industrial revolution in the nineteenth century created many new industries, improved the economy, and made the United States a top destination for immigrants. Consequently, industrialization led to the exploitation of the working class and the rise of the socialism1. The Jungle by Upton Sinclair illustrated the fate of immigrants in Chicago in the meatpacking industry, the harsh realities of life in the city, and the truth about opportunity in America as a result of capitalism. Through vivid imagery, metaphors, and symbolism, Sinclair described the horrors of industrial capitalism through the portrayal of the poor working and living conditions and annihilation of the Rudkus family. Sinclair highlighted the evils of capitalism and successfully evoked changes in alarming the public about the treatment of workers and had federal acts passed to ensure quality food packaging and processing. Sinclair painted a very vivid image of the terrible working conditions and wages workers, including Jurgis, had to endure. Packingtown had “tons of garbage festering in the sun [...] and toilet rooms that were open sewers”. Inside the meatpacking industry, the floors were “half an inch deep with blood” as “rivers of hot blood” continued to pour the entire day with a stench that “was enough to knock a man over”. This putrid description not only gave readers insight about the environment many workers suffered through for twelve...
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