Masculinity In Upton Sinclair's The Jungle

Derrick, Scott. “What A Beating Feels Like: Authorship, Dissolution, and Masculinity in Sinclair's The Jungle.” Studies in American Fiction, vol. 23, no. 1, 1995, pp. 85–100., doi:10.1353/saf.1995.0007.

This critical article review will focus on Scott Derrick analyzing the use of naturalism in

The Jungle in regards to highlighting the gender presence in the novel. Derrick considers that the “figure of the author and the structure of authoring are crucial to an understanding of the operation of gender” (85). Upton Sinclair exposes the inconsistencies and contradictions of gender roles during the late nineteenth-century. The development of Sinclair as a writer has been influenced by literary works such as Uncle Tom’s Cabin that contribute to

Derrick points out that the desire of a writer is to attain the position as the author. From there, the text provides background on Sinclair and his journey becoming a writer. The Jungle was written in relation to his unmitigated personal suffering in order to achieve humanist selfhood. In the process of becoming an author, “the materials a subject must manage in order to compose identity will always have a primary relation to gender” (93). Male authors during the nineteenth-century like Sinclair have a relationship with gender besides being raised by a female caregiver. In American literature, men experienced the prominence of women as a material reality and reacted to it (93). Hence, the feminine presence in the novel comes from the inspiration of Uncle Tom’s Cabin coining Harriet Beecher Stowe Sinclair’s literary foremother. The feminine presence is featured in the text by “producing images of female power which then poses problems for male identity”

One of the points made in this piece of work is how the novel is connected to the author. Similar to the main character Jurgis, the composition of The Jungle came from Sinclair isolating himself from the problems of family life. Derrick references that Sinclair’s son had been diagnosed with malnutrition that was unforeseen and his marriage to his first wife was falling into despair. Thus, the family in the novel turned into expressing the story of Sinclair’s family dealing with unforeseen fear, hunger, and illness. As a whole, these difficulties he faced were projected into the creation of The Jungle and Derrick highlights this well. Drawing a connection between the two help the audience recognizes the gender presence in the novel. Following gender expectations, one would think the man in the family would maintain gender differences by having control of his environment. However, the unforeseen events Sinclair experienced challenged gender roles by trying to manage the home, family, and the workplace like