The Jungle Book Analysis

Upton Sinclair’s 1906 novel The Jungle is a political statement piece that was written to show the conditions of immigrants workers in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Sinclair, through weeks of extensive research, gathered enough information to form a story based on the evidence he had gathered. Although The Jungle is a work of fiction, Sinclair’s novel is still said to be a primary source due the the fact that it was based on research he was doing personally, it was written near the time it was set, and it contains many historical accuracies.

The Jungle revolves around Jurgis Rudkus, a Lithuanian immigrant who is trying to support his family in the industrialized city of Chicago. Jurgis soon realized that America was not a promised land and things were not equal. Although he had expected to have to support his wife and other family members, not enough money was being made and they all had to seek work to make ends meet. Rudkus also ends up becoming aware of the schemes that take place in American politics and the meatpacking industry.

In chapter nine, the reader is informed that Jurgis has been attending union meetings on a regular basis and has been attending night school in order to learn English. He is shown doing his best to assimilate to American culture, something immigrants were encouraged to do at the time (Tovanche). Jurgis also fell victim to political ploys, as he was unknowingly tricked into and paid to vote for a specific candidate after attaining citizenship. This chapter also explores the false advertising that went into the meatpacking industry. Jurgis became aware of what was actually going into the products the company was producing.

The aforementioned plot was based on the seven weeks of u...

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...and women alike had wages cut simply because of who they were. Whether they understood what was happening or not, there was next to nothing that could be done about it and they were relatively helpless in that situation. Being an immigrant meant being below everyone. Immigrants were forced to take the jobs that Americans had initially deemed “beneath them,” and even when the jobs were desired, immigrants worked for less (Tovanche). The same went for women, American or immigrant.

Because of how little Sinclair held back in The Jungle, he received much criticism. Sinclair was already known to be a socialist and was beginning to earn a negative reputation. Theodore Roosevelt himself, who was President at the time, became extremely unhappy with the entire exposé arena of journalism and delivered a speech on the matter less than two months after The Jungle was published.