Sinclair's The Jungle: The Need for Rules and Regulations

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Imagine going to work and being sprayed by a scorching splash of molten metal. Wouldn't that be just terrible? Unfortunately for the working-class Americans of the early 20th century (who worked in a steel-factory of sorts), this hellish scene was a reality for them (Sinclair 215). Upton Sinclair's book The Jungle, a ficticious yet all-the-more realistic novel about the Chicago meat packing industry (and just working/life conditions in general for city-dwelling Americans at the time), follows Jurgis Rudkus --- A Lithuanian immigrant trying to live the “American dream”. Unfortunately, that dream is crushed under the deepest and darkest aspects of Capitalism through terrible working conditions, appalling living situations, homelessness/unemployment, and unfair legal and political procedures. These obstacles make excellent examples as for why some rules and regulations are needed in our otherwise Capitalistic society.
Sinclair first and foremost shows the importance of these regulations through harsh and dangerous labor conditions. He does and excellent job of this by detailing the state of the workplace and the dangers within it while also leaving characters within the book relatively unaware of said dangers. For example, Sinclair describes a rather horrifying scene within the “pickle-rooms” of Durham's, stating that if a man so much as scraped his thumb, he could have an absolutely terrible sore that could “put him out of the world” (Sinclair 104). He goes on and details the injuries of butchers and other knife-using meat-cutters, saying that thier thumbs would be so terribly cut that they would simply be “lumps of flesh” used to keep the knife steady; their fingernails had been worn down to nothingness, and “their knuckles had be...

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...d on his real life experiences in Chicago, which he used to then write the book. One who has read the book would also say that Mr. Sinclair is in favor of these government regulations that we have today, as the end of the book quickly transforms into a sort of socialist propaganda, which includs a 7-page pathos-based speech by a socialist speaker in the story; the book ends with a large socialist movement ramping up all over the nation with Jurgis being a part of it. While the need for socialism is debatable, the regulations that we have in place today are derived from lesser forms of Socialism, and are undebatably in place for the betterment of our society.

Works Cited

Foner, Eric. Give me liberty!: an American history. Seagull fourth ed. New York: W.W. Norton, 2014. Print.
Sinclair, Upton. The Jungle. 1906. Reprint. New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 2005. Print.

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