Overview

Upton Sinclair illustrates The Jungle with frightening detail, obviously making us ponder the question- “Do you think a man could make up a thing like that out of his head?” (page 269). The story follows a young Lithuanian, Jurgis, his newly wed wife, Ona, and the rest of his Slavic family. They immigrate to Chicago and a place called Packingtown, where the only work to be found there is in the cruel, merciless machinery inside the meat and canning factories. Jurgis finds himself quickly in debt without the pay he needs for his family and him; his deprivation of money coming from the lack of pay he’s getting from the painful factories he works in. After losing some of his loved ones to the diseases and terrible treatment of the workers, and the citizens no less, Jurgis and Ona find themselves struggling for survival, and Jurgis finds himself in jail after assaulting his wife’s boss (for raping Ona). The agony eats at him in his thirty days of imprisonment, only to find that his family has lost the house and is living deeply in poverty. What’s worse- his second son is stillborn to his wife who dies giving birth. With the loss of Ona, Jurgis goes into a dark depression, especially with him fighting to find another job. His only joy in his world is his baby son, Antanas, who dies from drowning about a year later. Having lost his only son and desperately trying to find a job, for he was blacklisted, Jurgis gives up and decides to “hobo it” as he hitches a ride and travels the rest of the city. From there, he finds himself begging and stealing to survive, and again falls behind bars for assaulting a bartender. This being the hardest part of his life, Jurgis comes to the conclusion that the world is a cruel and dark place full of greed. With the help of his old friend from prison, Jack Duane, he recovers from poverty and finds a job in politics, which supports him financially, but puts him in the position of managing the hog-killing rooms, which makes him witness the cruelty of the trade and the greed of the government from a different standpoint, especially since his workers are on strike. He loses his position in an unfortunate event with his wife’s former boss after being reunited, and he stumbles back into the poverty-stricken world he knew so well. The book ends on a successful note, however, for Jurgis falls into the hands of the Socialists, who commit themselves to better America and to get rid of the Beef Trust, and all other criminal acts in the governing world. And as Jurgis joins their cause, he feels as if he had found himself, as he battles to stop industry possession, and to enhance Socialism for the working-class people.

Background

The book Sinclair wrote is considered fiction, because of its characters, but it was based off of the frightening reality of an industrialized world. Such things were considered living in 1906 and the era surrounding, known as the Progressive Era, and were also considered terrible to the people who worked in the meat-packing industry. In the book, Jurgis works at a fertilizing plant at one point, and almost suffocates under the dirt and debris flying around the factory that could easily kill a worker in a month. This is not far from the truth, for reeking of fertilizing stench was common in big cities like Chicago. It was a time of physical and financial struggle, and for people similar to those Sinclair portrays, they had no sense what to think of it or how they were being exploited. They were being taken advantage of. They were forced to work under the evil foot of injustice, as I see it, and the companies made sure that they could get as much from these poor people as they could. As the famous speaker in page 252 states “-I find that all the fair and noble impulses of humanity, the dreams of poets and the agony of martyrs, are shackled and bound in the service of organized and predatory Greed!” Look at the chart below:
|Problem/Struggle |Treatment Portrayed by Sinclair |Historical Data |
|Meat-packing industry |The hideous scent of the factories describes the industry in |Cows, pigs, and other meat were brought into the |
| |itself because the workers there could not stand it in the |factories in the meat-packing industry to be made as |
| |least. The factories were covered in disease and sickness, |lard, glue, and canned goods. Government tried to |
| |the temperature was either steaming hot or bitterly cold, and|confine the factories to the outskirts of town so their|
| |the bosses were cruel and indifferent with the workers. |presence was not unpleasant to the people who lived |
| |Clearly, the industry was not taking workers into account, |there. Regardless, smoke could be seen from miles away |
| |but instead money. (Pages 23-26, describing the working area |in the sky, such as it is in The Jungle. |
| |of the killing beds) | |
|New Immigrants |Immigrants could not find reliable living conditions because |History shows, as it does on the numerous Chicago |
| |the government mainly considered immigrants coming in as a |history sites, that immigrants were coming into Chicago|
| |way to exploit them and gain more wealth. Most foreigners |at a numerous pace. This was mainly because the |
| |were out on the streets with their families because their |extensive number of stockyards gave the new workers |
| |money had been taken from them easily. An example of such |somewhere to make a living, which, by the book’s |
| |exploitation can be found on pages 130, 131 with the judge |standards, did not do justice. Perhaps the reason why |
| |and pages 205, 206 with the bartender and the judge. |the “New Immigrants” were treated so badly was because |
| | |there were so many. |
|City life |Most houses in the big cities such as Chicago, such as the |Named the Progressive Era, this time period improved |
| |one Jurgis and his family lived in, were reused every month |the cities themselves by bettering their economical and|
| |or so because the families living there would not be able to |structural growth. The Jungle was written by Sinclair |
| |afford it after a certain time. Why was that? The agents |to show the people what hard times there were in the |
| |would sell the house quickly and make the owners liable to |meat-packing industry. However, it seems as if history |
| |pay the fees, which were unknown to them. Jurgis knows his |focuses more on how Chicago improved, and less about |
| |family will not be able to pay off the rent on page 129. |how it was before it did. |
|Child labor |Children were expected to work from an early age. They were |Almost exactly how Sinclair described it, the |
| |hired often because they were paid little, but were still |historical aspect toward child labor seems to be in |
| |treated the same as any other worker who had to endure the |line with the way The Jungle describes it. Children |
| |foul conditions of the jobs. (Page 109, in which Kotrina was |were worked for minimal pay and were sent out into the |
| |to “settle down as a servant of a sausage machine.”) |cold to sell papers (as in the book) and work in |
| | |factories. Children were considered “less manageable” |
| | |to the stockyard employers, disrespecting them as |
| | |workingmen. |
|Working conditions |It can be said that the bosses and managers of the companies |In the early 1900’s, when the Progressive Era took |
| |did not care the least for their workers. If a worker was |place, woman composed 20% of the progressive workforce,|
| |gone for a mere four days, he/she would be replaced without |with children and men holding up the other 80%. As much|
| |consent. This was devastating in the book, as Jurgis |as 60% of children held an agricultural position, which|
| |continually got hurt and was evicted (on page 187 when he is |I found out, and which the book does not mention. |
| |hit around a corner by a loaded car). |Needless to say, layoffs and job losses were not |
| | |uncommon at all, making it a difficult time to be a |
| | |worker. |
|Socialism |The light at the end of the tunnel, so to speak. Socialism |Socialism, as a definition means that all the world’s |
| |was described as the force against the violence and |resources are owned by the people, establishing a |
| |mistreatment of the common people, being a shield to defend |common ownership. It was created in 1789- many years |
| |the working-class and the citizens from the painful blow of |before the book was written. As it is, the socialists |
| |the government. What it was doing was it was trying to |in the book and the socialists in history match as they|
| |prevent greed from the Trust federations and to create a |should in the fact that they share(d) a common goal- to|
| |better working and living world. (Pages 260-262: Ostrinksi |give the industries and the corporations to the common |
| |explains socialism to Jurgis) |people so that they may share a similar possession. |

It seems as if history favors the writing that Sinclair became famous for, or that maybe Sinclair was famous for the history in his writings. I just wonder, as do others, if the people were truly influenced by the book and if their eyes were open in shock at the time, or if they knew what was happening, and Sinclair preached to the choir and put a lasting stop to it, getting the appeal of those he wrote of.

Upton Sinclair

The brilliance behind The Jungle is also the brilliance behind the Pure Food and Drug Act, for Mr. Upton Sinclair had proposed his theory of the world in a socialist manner, and appealed to the hearts of the many people who knew just exactly what he was talking about. And that theory led to a revolution, as you could call it, to purify the food that was so disgustingly vulgar in his bestseller. The Pure Food and Drug Act was established by the U.S. Federal Law in 1906, the very same year The Jungle was written and published, and forbade the sale, manufacture, and transportation of poisonous patent medicine, along with regulation to inspect all meat products, and required that certain drugs require labeling, such as cocaine and heroin. The Pure Food and Drug Act was a breakthrough in the meat-packing industry, and in a semi-socialist way, was a breakthrough for the citizens of the U.S. as well. No law was established, but it was clear to everyone that workers were being mistreated, which provided an outlook to many rich landowners and government officials who didn’t necessarily have to be socialists to see what was happening to America’s workforce. Sinclair decided to be a writer when a colleague and friend of his published a magazine. He became a renowned author with just his first book, and was able to pay for him and his family with no complications. Fiction was the popular subject at the end of the Industrial Revolution, but Sinclair was more practical in his writings, calling himself a writer of American Realism, without knowing just what realism he would portray. He was called, as many American Realists writers were called, a Muckraker, which defined him as a journalist/novelist who explored and wrote about corruption in government and rich authorities (government). It was by 1902 that Sinclair decided to pursue socialism, and it was three years later when his grand masterpiece left the shelves and quickly nauseated the readers in an emotional way. Even Sinclair stated, “I aimed at the public’s heart, and by accident I hit in the stomach.”