Upton Sinclair s The Jungle - 2164 Words

The Jungle’s purpose is to illustrate just what happens when the American Dream does not come true. It is not for a lack of determination that its protagonist does not succeed with abundance -- nor ethic or spirit; he merely falls victim to a system in which those at the top succeed with abundance at the severe expense of those left with nothing at the bottom. The book’s author, Upton Sinclair, sought to show America the cost of its capitalist system. Born into a poor family with wealthy relatives, Sinclair was aware of social and economic disparity in America from a young age (The Jungle v). The Jungle is the result of Upton Sinclair working undercover for seven weeks in Chicago’s meatpacking industry in 1904, as well as the socialist†¦show more content†¦These early moments of jubilee in the book provide a very effective contrast to the book’s main themes of human misery and powerlessness as the life of Jurgis falls apart piece by piece. Following this wedding sequence the book catches its readers up on the status of Jurgis and the rest during the six months prior. A man of strong build, it did not take long for Jurgis to find work in the Chicago stockyards sweeping cow entrails into waste chutes on the killing floors of Brown’s slaughterhouse. The mechanics of the slaughterhouse are communicated with vivid detail – so much so that it is no wonder they became the primary subject readers latched onto when the book originally released. Among the most interesting slaughterhouse descriptions which Sinclair provides is that of the concept of â€Å"speeding up†, in which workers in certain positions at the slaughterhouse are trained and paid more to work faster in order to set the pace of the slaughterhouse’s disassembly machine and achieve a higher output. This exemplifies one of Sinclair’s issues with capitalism. In a capitalist society, the poor are kept in need, which makes them explo itable. Because there were many unemployed people looking for work at the stockyards at any given time, not performing at the dangerous pace set by others often meant giving up your job to someone more capable of or willing toShow MoreRelatedUpton Sinclair s The Jungle1989 Words   |  8 Pagesthe Haitians. Upton Sinclair seemed to have a similar view of the Lithuanian immigrants of the 1800s. Upton Sinclair is the author of The Jungle, a book that follows a family of Lithuanian immigrants as they travel to and try to make their way in America. Sinclair used the book to speak out about the issues of America through the eyes of immigrants, including the economic system and the corruption within the government. The question this paper is required to answer is if Upton Sinclair adequately portrayedRead MoreUpton Sinclair s The Jungle1832 Words   |  8 Pagesthrough time and meet the author of â€Å"The Jungle†, Upton Sinclair, who will help us to open our eyes how everything was chaos and improved in the Progressive Era. And in that book, we can also see many faces and colors of the social American world had back then. Thanks to Upton Sinclair, because he drew a painting about things worked in the Progressive Era, we could imagine how and live back when America was in the Progressive Era. Upton Sinclair was a muckraker who examined the riseRead MoreUpton Sinclair s The Jungle1438 Words   |  6 PagesThe Jungle and Today Upton Sinclair’s novel, The Jungle, follows the life of Jurgis Rudkus, his Lithuanian family, and friends who all recently immigrated to Chicago in search of a better life. Jurgis, Ona, and the rest of their family find jobs in Packington, the meatpacking industry of Chicago. Quickly they discover the difficulties of surviving in the United States during the early 1900’s through financial troubles, unreliable work, illness, and swindling. Through his novel, Sinclair exploitsRead MoreUpton Sinclair s The Jungle1843 Words   |  8 Pagesfamous people inspire authors to write books written about their achievements, however Upton Sinclair Junior did it backwards. Some of his ninety novels including an autobiography, and in particular The Jungle, changed America forever by using fictitious stories to depict the present issues at that time. Upton Sinclair was an author and activist in the early to mid 1900’s who was passionate about issues involving women s rights, w orking conditions, and the unemployed. He wrote over ninety books in hisRead MoreUpton Sinclair s The Jungle Essay1678 Words   |  7 Pagesbetter life. However, this â€Å"better life† was not just given upon arrival, immigrants were not told the horrid experiences, and backbreaking hour, they would face in search for a better life. There is no better representation of this than Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle, this book is a very accurate representation of the life of the vast majority of people within the United States. During the time when this book was written there were few jobs, and the jobs that were obtainable were mostly factory jobsRead MoreUpton Sinclair s The Jungle1536 Words   |  7 PagesThe Jungle Upton Sinclair, an American writer and reformer, was born on September 20, 1878, in Baltimore, Maryland. Both of Sinclair’s parents came from prominent families, but Sinclair grew up impoverished because of an alcoholic father. Throughout his childhood, Sinclair lived in conditions that varied from slums to country homes but sometimes his father would spend all the family’s money on alcohol forcing Sinclair and his mother to live with his mother’s wealthy sister in order to surviveRead MoreUpton Sinclair s The Jungle1630 Words   |  7 PagesWritten at the turn of the 20th century, Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle took place in an era of unprecedented advancement in civilization where the American economy had risen to become one of the wealthiest on the planet. However, Sinclair asserts that the rise of capitalist America resulted in the virulent corruption and competition that plighted society into an untamed â€Å"jungle.† Shown by the corruption o f the Chicago meatpacking industry, Sinclair highlights the repulsive filth of human greed thatRead MoreUpton Sinclair s The Jungle Essay1471 Words   |  6 PagesUpton Sinclair took interest in fiction at an early age by writing fiction stories as a young boy to writing adventure stories and jokes to help support himself through college. He was the winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1943 and focused on writing fiction stories about real world industrialist views. Upton Sinclair’s fiction â€Å"The Jungle† entwines the reality of the dangerous and legal conditions of meat industry workers and consumers in Chicago while narrating the lower-class lifestyleRead MoreUpton Sinclair s The Jungle986 Words   |  4 PagesUpton Sinclair’s The Jungle is an unashamed example of the journalistic style known as muckraking. Sinclair researched the conditions being fought against during the Progressive Era and painted a picture in literary form for the ignorant read ers. The consumerism that taped into the greed of industrialists is drawn out many times. This greed, in turn, drove down the American Standard of living in almost every aspect. With every corner of hope demolished, a path was laid out for all to follow, theRead MoreAnalysis Of Upton Sinclair s The Jungle 2028 Words   |  9 Pagesâ€Å"I aimed for the public’s hearts, and by accident I hit it in the stomach.† This quote was in response to the reaction of Upton Sinclair’s ground breaking exposà ©, â€Å"The Jungle†. On February 26, 1906 Sinclair shocked the Nation by exposing the horrors of slaughter houses and meat packing plants. Thousands of people have died from food-borne illnesses. E-coli, along with other diseases resulting from filthy food processing was revealed as the murderer. As shocking as it might have been back then