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The jungle upton sinclair book review
The jungle upton sinclair book review
The jungle upton sinclair book review
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The American Meat Grinder: Analysis of Upton Sinclair’s Meatpacking Monstrosity
When someone thinks of what meat really is, what do they think about? T-Bone? Porterhouse? Ribeye? God forbid, Fillet Mignon? What about Tuberculosis? Rat poison? Maybe even a little bit of Joe from the factory? You might think, “No way they’d let something like that get into our meat!”; Unfortunately, this was more often than not the truth surrounding meat processed in the early 1900a, as the American government continued to support large businesses in the recent era of mass consumerism. The U.S. Government was willing to overlook “minor discrepancies” in the production of various goods, especially meat, and put metaphorical handcuffs onto the wrists of the masses
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of low-wage laborers. These laborers were subject to extremely dangerous working conditions, many of them becoming permanently scarred-or killed-in the pursuit of big business.
Obviously, the lamentations of many of these laborers (at this point in time composed of “New” immigrants, originating from Southern and Eastern Europe) were heard and ignored by those in power, all except one made by author Upton Sinclair, called The Jungle. In this jarring and obviously Socialist-charged novel, Lithuanian immigrant Jurgis Rudkus attempts to pursue the “American Dream” in the meatpacking district of Chicago, Illinois, securing a job, a home, and a future for himself and his family in industrialist America. However, he soon begins to realize that in this world of large corporations, labor unions, and general corruption, success does not come often, and soon loses everything. Despite multiple instances of deceptions and run-ins with the long arm of the law, he attempts to scrape by a living in the city, then countryside, and then back in the city where we discovers a newfound hope for his future; not in religion, but rather the political movement consisting of the working class known as Socialism. Through reading the novel, the graphic descriptions of the working conditions of laborers and the characterization of businesses, labor unions, and the Socialist movement, one can understand the …show more content…
reasons for the Progressive reforms made after the publication of this book in 1906. Throughout this novel, the most consistent theme is suffering.
Suffering never ends for Jurgis, as he talks about how he “…sold himself to a contractor for a certain time, and tramped nearly four hundred miles with a gang of men to work upon a railroad…”, and from this work only gained “...eighty roubles*…” (Page 26). This highlights the initial reason for Europeans like Jurgis to move to the United States; it is almost impossible to find stable work which gives sufficient pay without enduring numerous hardships along the way. Because they already have experienced this type of physical suffering in order to provide for their families, they hope to lessen this type of suffering by finding work in the America to pursue the “American Dream”, where hard work may grant one with a house, material wealth, and a content family. This, however, is not to be; Jurgis and many other immigrants soon find out the ugly reality of industrial America, that work in America serves as their prison, much like it was in their native homelands. Within their factory lives, suffering is all too obvious, presenting itself as many times as it pleases throughout the descriptions of the working conditions in the novel. When discussing the jobs of the wool-pluckers at Jugis’s meatpacking factory, it is explained how “…the pelts of the sheep had to be painted with acid to loosen the wool”, and that “…the pluckers had to pull out this wool with their bare hands, till the acid had eaten their fingers off”
(Page 113). Again, the theme of suffering appears again, albeit this time in a more blatantly gruesome manner with the imagery of the acid-dissolved bony fingers of the workers, bringing attention to the consequences of such a job which could only be filled by those unaware of the sacrifices they themselves will make in the pursuit of a meager living, provided they are not suddenly replaced by another poor soul one morning, unwary of the horrific consequences of their labor. The dissolved fingers themselves are a representation of the theme, the constant hours of hard labor dissolving the inner core of the common worker, such as Jurgis, down to the bone: Bare, withered away, with no visible sign of accomplishment or progress to make up for their physical and mental suffering─only a thin, grotesque by-product of failed progress. Even as Jurgis experiences salvation (in the form of Socialism), there is suffering;
John Steinbeck does not portray migrant farm worker life accurately in Of Mice and Men. Housing, daily wages, and social interaction were very different in reality. This paper will demonstrate those differences by comparing the fictional work of Steinbeck to his non-fictional account of the time, The Harvest Gypsies.
The public’s reaction created unintended consequences from the author’s original intent. Sinclair himself writes "I aimed at the public's heart, and by accident I hit it in the stomach." Publishing the novel led to new federal food safety laws such as the Pure Food and Drug act and the Meat Inspection Act. During his job Jurgis noticed the meat factory was a place “...where men welcomed tuberculosis in the cattle they were feeding...”(112). As it would fatten them up and the factory could sell disease ridden meat. Moreover, on the killing floor, they would butcher “slunk calves” for meat. Slunk calves are born prematurely and is against the law to process this cow meat for
In 1900, there were over 1.6 million people living in Chicago, the country's second largest city. Of those 1.6 million, nearly 30% were immigrants. Most immigrants came to the United States with little or no money at all, in hope of making a better life for themselves. A city like Chicago offered these people jobs that required no skill. However, the working and living conditions were hazardous and the pay was barely enough to survive on. This is the bases for Upton Sinclair's book, The Jungle.
After the clean-up, U. S. meat is imported by many countries, opening fresh markets for the packers. Upton Sinclair is supposed to be. to have said that he aimed at the public's heart, and by. accident. He hit it in the stomach.
The beginning of Meat Inspection Act seemed to be at 1904, after “The Jungle” of Sinclair published. In fact, it started twenty years earlier, the regular law, used to satisfy Europe, the largest meat export market, but in 1865 Congress passed an act to prevent the importation of diseased cattle and pigs. Because of disease, European like Italian, French, and English restricted or banned the importation meat, and they turned to another supplier. Some bills were introduced but they failed to gather sufficient support. May 1884, Bureau of Animal Industry was established, it was doing good job in fighting Europe restrictions, helping the packers, but not helping the domestic consumers. March 1891, the first major meat inspection law was passed; some country removed the prohibitions on importing American pork. It distressed the European packing industry as well. So, they imposed more standards. Government had to do more action; major percent meat slaughtered was inspected. Some of companies exploited the law, but most of them, especially big companies agreed with the committee in 1902. In 1904, Smith, who was a great information aid to Sinclair, published a series of articles in The Lancet...
Taking place in the jungle of meat packing factories during the early 1900s in Chicago, a journalist by the name of Upton Sinclair dissects the savage inner workings of America’s working class factory lifestyle. Sinclair portrayed the grim circumstance that workers faced and the exploited lives of factory workers in Chicago. He became what was then called a mudrucker; a journalist who goes undercover to see first hand the conditions they were investigating. Being in poor fortune, Sinclair was able to blend into the surrounds of the factory life with his poor grimy clothing. The undercover journalist would walk into the factory with the rest of the men, examine its conditions, and record them when he returned home. It is the worker’s conditions
...ous struggles of Jurgis and his family. Not only does the family suffer from poverty, but they also suffer from a poor knowledge of English, the glares of the townspeople, and the damaging effects of hard manual labor. The family gets harmed by the bosses in Packingtown as well, they receive unfair wages for long days at work. They also get deceived by the housing agent, forcing them to pay much more money for the house as a result of insurance, an expense they were not prepared for. As a result of the hard manual labor and his name being put on the blacklist, Jurgis resorts to “hoboing it” just to survive towards the end of the novel. The poverty tears the family apart: they end up splitting up towards the end of the novel, all going separate ways. Poverty negatively impacted the familial relationships of thousands of immigrants in Chicago in the early 1900s.
The enormous rush of European immigrants encountered a lack of jobs. Those who were lucky enough to find employment wound up in factories, steel mills, or in the meat packing industry. Jurgis Rudkus was one of these disappointed immigrants. A sweeper in slaughter house, he experienced the horrendous conditions which laborers encountered. Along with these nightmarish working conditions, they worked for nominal wages, inflexible and long hours, in an atmosphere where worker safety had no persuasion. Early on, there was no one for these immigrants to turn to, so many suffered immensely. Jurgis would later learn of worker unions and other groups to support the labor force, but the early years of his Americanized life were filled, with sliced fingers, unemployment and overall a depressing and painful "new start."
The need for affordable, efficiently produced meat became apparent in the 1920’s. Foer provides background information on how Arthur Perdue and John Tyson helped to build the original factory farm by combining cheap feeds, mechanical debeaking, and automated living environ...
The first of the legislation of the federal government in this time was the Meat Inspection Act of 1906. The Meat Inspection Act required the federal inspection of meats that were headed for interstate commerce and this gave much power to the big bosses of the Agriculture Department. The powers that this act endowed to the big bosses of the Department of Agriculture was to set the standards or the sanitary conditions. This Act basically gives the government the power to say what is sanitary and safe and what is vile and rank. The Meat Inspection Act was brought to the attention of the political hierarchy in great part to the novel written by Upton Sinclair. Upton portrayed the meat packing industry of Chicago as vile and disgusting. He expressed hideous images of rats and feces and other things very unfit for the food that they were eating. President Roosevelt read the book, The Jungle, and was totally convinced and he acted very quickly. In this, he sent a few federal agent to go investigate this convincing claim to see if it existed, they reiterated his disgusting results. Thus the Meat Inspection Act of 1906 was passed by the Congress and by Roosevelt on its way to becoming a part of the incredible regulations of the Progressive Era.
The Jungle caused such an outcry that President Roosevelt tried to mandate government enforcement of sanitary and health standards in the food industry. After Congress wouldn’t pass a meat inspection bill, Roosevelt released the findings of the Neill-Reynolds report. The Neill-Reynolds’s report found that the meat packing industry was as horrendous as Sinclair claime...
In the early 1900’s there was a dramatic increase in the number of immigrants coming to the eastern shores of America. Many were pulled to America because of its economic opportunity, freedom, need for labor and its beautiful country. Immigrants were excited to come to America and were pushed from their home countries because of food shortages, overpopulation, war and political instability. This was going on in an important era in American history called the “gilded age”. It was a time of economic growth, and industrialization but also had high percentages of poverty mainly in urban environments. The majority of the immigrants intended to advance out west but actually settled in the eastern cities. In the book The Jungle, Jargis and his family moved to the Americas and hoped to live the “American Dream” but it was the exact opposite when they arrived. Jurgis, his wife Ona, and the rest of the Lithuanian family struggled with working conditions, living conditions, health problems, and maintaining a stable workplace. They were all dealt with disgusting conditions in the boarding houses and a brutal working environment in Packingtown. In 1905, when the book was written, there were very little government regulations, especially in the meat packing industry, which led to unsafe working conditions and sanitation issues.
To be concise, Jurgis and his family faced various challenges in America. As a result, their lives changed, for better or for worse. They were inexperienced, and therefore made many mistakes, which made their life in Chicago very worrisome. However, their ideology and strong belief in determination and hard work kept them alive. In a land swarming with predators, this family of delicate prey found their place and made the best of it, despite the fact that America, a somewhat disarranged and hazardous jungle, was not the wholesome promise-land they had predicted it to be.
At the turn of the twentieth century “Muckraking” had become a very popular practice. This was where “muckrakers” would bring major problems to the publics attention. One of the most powerful pieces done by a muckraker was the book “The Jungle”, by Upton Sinclair. The book was written to show the horrible working and living conditions in the packing towns of Chicago, but what caused a major controversy was the filth that was going into Americas meat. As Sinclair later said in an interview about the book “I aimed at the publics heart and by accident hit them in the stomach.”# The meat packing industry took no responsibility for producing safe and sanitary meat.
“The Jungle,” written by Upton Sinclair in 1906, describes how the life and challenges of immigrants in the United States affected their emotional and physical state, as well as relationships with others. The working class was contrasted to wealthy and powerful individuals who controlled numerous industries and activities in the community. The world was always divided into these two categories of people, those controlling the world and holding the majority of the power, and those being subjected to them. Sinclair succeeded to show this social gap by using the example of the meatpacking industry. He explained the terrible and unsafe working conditions workers in the US were subjected to and the increasing rate of corruption, which created the feeling of hopelessness among the working class.