The American Dream In Upton Sinclair's The Jungle

In The Jungle, Upton Sinclair exposes the truth about the beloved, “American Dream”. Sinclair supports his argument by uncovering the unjust treatment of citizens and the illegal activities allowed in a capitalistic society. Sinclair’s purpose is to spread socialism and to prove that hard work and perseverance do not bring success in a world where capitalism exists.

The American Dream is the idea that an equal opportunity to achieve success lies within every individual through hard work and determination. Upton Sinclair develops this novel to establish characters, like Jurgis and his family, to counteract the vision of the, illusory, American Dream. The characters in The Jungle begin as a merry family who are ecstatic to go to America, where

the answers to all their needs and desires dwell. Their arrival in Chicago indicated them as fresh meat to a world where the innocent are swallowed and then upchucked into a hopeless and pessimistic American civilization .This is also indicated by the quote, “They were so innocent, they came so very trustingly; and they were so very human in their protests-and so perfectly within their rights! They had done nothing to deserve it; and it was adding insult to injury, as the thing was done here, swinging them up in this cold-blooded, impersonal way…… without the homage of a tear.”(pg.35)
This quote compares people, like Jurgis and his family, to innocent pigs who enter society with hopes and dreams; and once society has used all of their parts, it throws them away. The whole family witnesses this usage throughout the novel. For example through chapter 6, the family learns that the house they bought wasn’t new at all. An old Lithuanian woman tells them that “Cheap as the houses were, they were sold with the idea that the people who bought them would not be able to pay for them. When they failed-if it were only a single month- they would lose the house and all that they had paid on it, and then the company would sell it all over again.”(pg.65) Therefore trapping Jurgis’s family, including other foreign families, and stealing every penny of their money and then replacing them with another gullible family- when the Jurgis’s family could no longer afford the payments, the company eventually evicted them. Another example would be when Jurgis was new to the world of Chicago. He was strong, confident, and able; at his first search for a job he was chosen immediately over hundreds of unemployed people. Now that he was used, weak, and fragile he stood in the line of employment, like every other unemployed man and watched others get chosen for a job.
Sinclair develops his characters throughout the novel to guide his readers to see the transformations these characters, namely Marija, Jurgis, and Ona, undergo, blaming the outcomes of these characters on a world ruled under a capitalistic society.

The American Dream, in America, was no longer an idea among the working men in Chicago, but a fight for survival. Marija was always the strong one out of all the other characters, she was quick to defend her rights and help her family; her transformation at the end of the novel was very tragic. She gave into societies rule (which makes success impossible through good works alone) and accepted her life as a prostitute, and became addicted to morphine. Ona was kind and positive before capitalism consumed her; she was now a weak and miserable character, who ached constantly, and had sold herself to prostitution to save her family from being blacklisted-capitalism’s way of ending employment toward specific individuals. Jurgis’s character was a strong and determined individual, who believed strongly in the American Dream; he too was destroyed by the burdens of society, resulting in a pitiful and faithless working man. He lost his hopes in the American Dream and lived the way success was found-through criminal activity. Sinclair ends Jurgis’s fate with him being saved by socialism, and emphasizes socialism as a

lifesaver.
Sinclair, throughout the novel, exposes varieties of illegal activities and scandals.

The idea of living the American Dream is disguised as a net. Every year new foreigners come into America looking to achieve the American Dream and become trapped inside a web of deception and depression. These prisoned foreigners soon become weak and exhausted and society will eventually replace them with new foreigners, throwing them into an empty world with no money or food; this action leads them to become, like Jurgis, involved in the crime ring. They all face different fates. For women, they turn, like Marija, to the prostitution ring (though some female foreigners have no choice because they were forced into it, and many can’t escape from it because of the debts they owe). Some immigrants, hoping to make quick money, rely on gambling and bet in underground fighting rings. Others confide in stealing; or go to jail, which is preferred because they have shelter and receive

food.
Sinclair desired to save the lives of people in America, at this time, by using socialism as the base for a better life. The idea of the perfect life in America was used as bait for fresh meat, like new foreigners. Many who took this bait fell to the seduction of the crime ring or bared the weight of unemployment. Through the novel, Sinclair illustrates the ways of America during this time and conveys through countless explanations that crime is king and will always be unless socialist rule takes over.