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Literary devices of literature
Literary devices of literature
What is the importance of character development in literature
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An author of a social commentary strives to create change within the society that they live in, especially a change in those inequalities and problems that they deem the most prudent and appalling. In these works it is especially important to make the story as relatable and noteworthy as possible in order to affect the reader and cause change. In his novel, The Jungle, Upton Sinclair uses structure, characterization, and symbolism to depict the mistreatment of the working class, especially immigrant families. He implies that no matter what, the odds are always against you, making it almost impossible to succeed in achieving the American Dream. Sinclair uses the structure of the novel to depict the cycle of life of Jurgis, especially the constant …show more content…
loop of hardships to minimal prosperity, to aid in the illustration that the American Dream is almost impossible to achieve. To the same purpose Sinclair uses the characterization of Jurgis and Marija to outline the complications that the family faces and the extreme measures, crime and prostitution, that they go to solve them. He uses symbolism to show hope and also to reflect the treatment of the immigrant families. Overall, the use of these methods are essential in portraying his social commentary. Upton Sinclair uses the structure of the novel to depict the impossibility of achieving the American Dream. The novel follows a pattern of low points and then high. This pattern specifically follows the life of Jurgis. The novel moves with his low points in life, where he just scrapes by and lives his life on the bare minimum. He’s not necessarily living, but rather simply surviving. Sinclair writes, Such was the home to which the new arrivals were welcomed. There was nothing better to be had — they might not do so well looking further, for Mrs. Jukniene had at least kept one room for herself and her three little children, and now offered to share this with the women and girls of the party. (32). He describes the home that the family arrived to. They arrive to nothing but a small attic to force an entire family into. This low point in their life soon picks up as they buy their first house. They begin to succeed in American and begin to feel as though they are going towards the American Dream. Sinclair describes their feeling towards buying a house as: “They had bought their home. It was hard for them to realize that the wonderful house was theirs to move into whenever they chose.” (57). This moment defines them as they hope to continue to make money and live on in America. However, this all soon comes crashing down. The thing came gradually. In the first place as to the home they had bought, it was not new at all, as they had supposed; it was about fifteen years old, and there was nothing new upon it but the paint, which was so bad that it needed to be put on new every year or two. (69). They had been lied to and tricked. Their “new” home wasn’t new at all, but rather a really old home that they needed to fix every now and then. This is a use of their money and resources. They can no longer live comfortably in America knowing that they need to fix up the house every now and again. Their dreams aren’t crushed, but it put a wrench in their goal of achieving the American Dream. Their life became even more difficult now that they have to fix up the house every now and again. The cycle of Jurgis’ life is how many immigrant families were. Sinclair uses Jurgis as an example for everyone as a whole, depicting the impossibility of achieving the American dream when all you can do is hope for better times. Using characterization, Sinclair is able to depict how hard it is to achieve the American Dream.
Sinclair uses his characters Jurgis and Marija to show the measures the family is willing to go to when their life turns to hardship. With the death of his son, Jurgis’ life goes bad. He runs off and lives as a hobo for the time being. When he feels it’s time to return he realizes just how bad his situation is: with no money and no place to stay he’s invited to a drunk wealthy man’s house. The man “gives” him a hundred dollar bill and Jurgis is kicked out of the house with it. Normally an honest and hardworking man, which we saw when Jurgis was back in his home country saving up to leave for America, his extreme poverty has turned him into a desperate and conniving man. “He put his hand into his trousers’ pocket every now and then, to make sure the precious hundred-dollar bill was still there.” (241). After taking the bill by “stealing” he realizes that life is easier with money. Even though he didn’t get it by conventional means.This is a turning point. He has developed into a new person who’s characterized by the need to be well off. He wants the easy money. Thus, Jurgis enters the crime ring. “A month ago Jurgis was had all but perished of starvation upon the streets; and now suddenly, as by the gift of a magic key, he had entered into a world where money and all the good things in life came freely.” (250). After his introduction into crime he realizes life couldn’t be …show more content…
better. This is how he can survive Chicago. He has to be willing to do the dirty deeds in order to survive. This warped mentality shows how the American Dream is unachievable. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t succeed in his attempts. Marija, on the other hand, struggles with her life and turns to prostitution. Before she was a pure girl who wasn’t troublesome at all. But desperation turned her to prostitution. As Jurgis and Marija talk, she says: “‘I had to live,’ she said; ‘and I couldn’t see the children starve.’” (286). The family was falling to pieces and nobody was there to support them, since Jurgis ran off. Her caring nature comes out, but now she is impure and desperate. She’s willing to do whatever it takes to make the money needed to survive. However, her mentality is warped much life Jurgis’ was. She think’s selling her body is a good thing, she believes that it’s a positive for the family. ‘When people are starving’ the other continued, “and they have anything with a price, they ought to sell it, I say. I guess you realize it now when it’s too late. Ona could have taken care of us all, in the beginning.’ Marija spoke without emotion, as one who had come to regard things from the business point of view. (287). Notice how she’s become emotionless. The desperation has sapped it all out of her. She’s been through so much that she sees her body as a product, something she can sell and make a living on. She’s turned herself into a business to survive. By depicting the extreme measures the two family members had to go to, Sinclair helps the reader to understand how impossible it is to achieve the American Dream in a just and fair manner. Symbolism is used to related the characters and animals to emotions, depicting the hope lost and how everyone was lining up for their own slaughter.
The use of baby Antanas as a representation of hope is depicted when the only thing Jurgis has left is him. After the death of his wife, Jurgis has all the reason to give up and not continue on. But the baby is what drives him forward. He is hope. “The little fellow [Antanas] was now really the one delight Jurgis had in the world — his one hope, his one victory.” (207). Antanas is what drives him to work every day and to do better. He’s the source of his hope to keep going, to keep living his life. WIthout baby Antanas he wouldn’t be able to survive. And when Antanas does die, he
crumbles. Jurgis took the news in a peculiar way. He turned deadly pale, but he caught himself, and for half a minute stood in the middle of the room, clenching his hands tightly and setting his teeth. Then he pushed Aniele aside and stroke into the net room and climbed the latter. (209). All of his hope for the future was lost with the death of his son. He has no will to keep going, and thus he runs from his family and his problems. It was Antanas that was tying him down and holding them together, and without him the family fell apart. The hog machine is a symbol of how the immigrants line themselves up for slaughter. They wait in line for jobs that mistreat them and for opportunities that won’t better them in life. They do it to survive. Each hog is individual and different and unaware of the slaughter that they’re lined up for. And each of them had an individuality of his own a will of his own, a hope and a heart’s desire; each was full of self-confidence, of self importance, and a sense of dignity. And trusting and strong in faith he had gone about his business, and while a black shadow hung over him and a horrid Fate waited in his pathway. (40). Each hog is like a new immigrant trying to achieve the American Dream. They line up blindly, not knowing the horrible fate ahead of them (ie. unjust working conditions, mistreatment, and a life of hardship). The people in charge of these hogs don’t care about the squeals and please of the animals. They only care about the money that they’re going to be making. Sinclair describes the apathy towards the animals as: Meantime, heedless of all these things, the men upon the floor were going about their work. Neither squeals of hogs nor tears of visitors made any difference to them; one by one they hooked the hogs, and one by one with a swift stroke they sit their throats. (39). The conditions of the working men and women aren’t cared about. All the leaders only care about is the profit that they’re making. The pleas of the people don’t matter. The use of symbolism allows the reader to grasp the severity of the immigrants situation and better relate to their hardships. Upton Sinclair wanted you to grasp his message, that the American Dream is almost impossible to actually achieve, through his use of structure, characterization, and symbolism. The cycle of life of Jurgis is the prime structure of the novel; it follows his life as he goes from hardship to prosperity back to hardship. This cycling depicts how impossible it is to rise up and achieve the American Dream. The characterization of Jurgis and Marija also depict this commentary. By turning to crime Jurgis finds it easier to live life with money, even though it came to him from unconventional means. Marija, on the other hand, turns to prostitution to support herself and her family. The symbolism of Antanas as hope allows for the reader to grasp the change in Jurgis’ mentality. The hog machine is similar to the way the humans line up for slaughter, symbolising that they don’t know what they’re in for when they enter America. Both uses of symbolism depict the impossibility of achieving the American Dream. The relevance of this today is that people still debate if the American Dream is possible to achieve. It sheds light on the experience of the immigrant also.
The Jungle by Upton Sinclair is about a Lithuanian family living in Chicago in the 1900’s. They had faith in the American dream, hoping to start a new and successful life. Unfortunately they were deprived of they hopes and dreams. They were placed in the middle of a society where only the strongest and richest survived. The rich keep getting richer and the poor get even poorer. Jurgis and his family went to extreme lengths just in hopes of finding a job, they were forced to travel in heavy rain, strong winds, and thick snow, even when they were sick, in fear of losing their jobs. The Jungle pointed out many flaws in society such as filthy meat and sickening work conditions.
Emerson wrote, “Times of terror are times of eloquence.” Based on your reading of Bitzer’s article, what does this sentiment mean to you? Given your understanding, illustrate this concept by providing three illustrations, one each from the three different contexts indicated below, a(n):
Media such as movies, video games and television, in general, are all created to support some form of social context. This helps with generating popularity because people are able to relate to the form of media. In Greg Smith’s book What Media Classes Really Want to Discuss, he describes 6 different representational strategies that justifies people’s way of thinking. The trope that I will be amplifying is the white savior tactic. In addition, I will connect this strategy to the movie The Blind Side. There are clear examples throughout the film where racism and low-income cultures exist in which the white family is there to help. The Tuohy family from the movie “The Blind Side” serves as the white savior for the progression of Michael
In the book Into the Wild, Jon Krakauer wrote about Christopher McCandless, a nature lover in search for independence, in a mysterious and hopeful experience. Even though Krakauer tells us McCandless was going to die from the beginning, he still gave him a chance for survival. As a reader I wanted McCandless to survive. In Into the Wild, Krakauer gave McCandless a unique perspective. He was a smart and unique person that wanted to be completely free from society. Krakauer included comments from people that said McCandless was crazy, and his death was his own mistake. However, Krakauer is able to make him seem like a brave person. The connections between other hikers and himself helped in the explanation of McCandless’s rational actions. Krakauer is able to make McCandless look like a normal person, but unique from this generation. In order for Krakauer to make Christopher McCandless not look like a crazy person, but a special person, I will analyze the persuading style that Krakauer used in Into the Wild that made us believe McCandless was a regular young adult.
Upton Sinclair's Purpose in Writing The Jungle Upton Sinclair wrote this book for a couple of reasons. First and foremost, he tries to awaken the reader to the terrible. living conditions of immigrants in the cities around the turn of the century. Chicago has the most potent examples of these. conditions.
Anticipation is prevalent throughout The Road, which is set by the narrative pace, creating a tense and suspenseful feeling and tone.
Sinclair’s The Jungle, is his fictionalized report of Chicago's Packingtown. It traces a family of Lithuanian immigrants in Chicago, and describes the horrifying living and working conditions they endure. Through Jurgis, the protagonist, and his family, Sinclair unfolds the tragedy of suffering of all Packinghouse workers in their pursuit of the American Dream. He gives a detailed description about their ordeals, from their lodging at boardinghouses to their buying of cheated house,...
“Rise up! When you’re living on your knees, you rise up.” In Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Broadway musical Hamilton, Alexander Hamilton and his fellow colonists “rise up” against the British monarchy’s oppression of the colonies. The lyric very much relates to Upton Sinclair’s 1906 novel The Jungle. The Jungle follows the story of an immigrant family living in Chicago whose lives and human dignities are exploited due to American Capitalism and corruption. Sinclair conveys his attitude toward this through multiple voices, and ultimately, elucidates the need for the working class to “rise up” against corporate America. One of the voices represents America’s corrupt Capitalists and how they dissuade workers from going on strike. Another explicitly tells
Sinclair, has shown in a dramatic style the hardships and obstacles which Jurgis and fellow workers had to endure. He made the workers sound so helpless and the conditions so gruesome, that the reader almost wants a way out for Jurgis. Sinclair's The Jungle is a "subliminal" form of propaganda for
A major theme of The Jungle is socialism as a remedy for the evils of capitalism. Every event that takes place in the novel is designed to show a particular failure of capitalism. Sinclair attempts to show that capitalism is a "system of chattel slavery" and the working class is subject to "the whim of en every bit as brutal and unscrupulous as the old-time slave drivers"(Sinclair 126). Sinclair portrays this view through Jurgis, a hardworking Lithuanian immigrant and his family. Sinclair uses the hardships faced by this family to demonstrate the effect of capitalism on working people as a whole. Jurgis' philosophy of "I will work harder" is shown not to work in this system. No matter how hard Jurgis worked, he and his family were still stuck in the same squalor. These characters did not overcome the odds and succeed. That would defeat the purpose of the novel; to depict capitalism as an economic and social system that ignores the plight of the working class and only cares for the wealthy, as well as furthering his socialist agenda.
The most significant event in the emergence of the twentieth century is the diversity and struggle of society's classes. The novel, The Jungle penned by Upton Sinclair attempts to display the social and economic challenges of the lower class by demonstrating the difficulties of a Lithuanian immigrant family.The predicament situation of Jurgis and his family reveals the dark side of the capitalism, therefore, it also revealed dominance and the exploitation of the bourgeoisie from the proletariat class.Throughout the novel, Jurgis and his family encounter varied difficulties from being unable to find a proper job to several deaths followed one after another due to the harsh life conditions consequently followed by the separation of the family
Pollan’s article provides a solid base to the conversation, defining what to do in order to eat healthy. Holding this concept of eating healthy, Joe Pinsker in “Why So Many Rich Kids Come to Enjoy the Taste of Healthier Foods” enters into the conversation and questions the connection of difference in families’ income and how healthy children eat (129-132). He argues that how much families earn largely affect how healthy children eat — income is one of the most important factors preventing people from eating healthy (129-132). In his article, Pinsker utilizes a study done by Caitlin Daniel to illustrate that level of income does affect children’s diet (130). In Daniel’s research, among 75 Boston-area parents, those rich families value children’s healthy diet more than food wasted when children refused to accept those healthier but
The book, The Jungle, written by Upton Sinclair, has portrayed how conditions and social norms of the early 1900’s helped shape society through social reform. Sexism, racism, and class, shaped the experiences and choices of the immigrants in The Jungle throughout the book. The huge difference between the classes was the most significant of the three. Sinclair used the story of one immigrant and his family to help show what was going on in society at that time, to raise awareness, and to promote socialism.
The movie trailer “Rio 2”, shows a great deal of pathos, ethos, and logos. These rhetorical appeals are hidden throughout the movie trailer; however, they can be recognized if paying attention to the details and montage of the video. I am attracted to this type of movies due to the positive life messages and the innocent, but funny personifications from the characters; therefore, the following rhetorical analysis will give a brief explanation of the scenes, point out the characteristics of persuasive appeals and how people can be easily persuaded by using this technique, and my own interpretation of the message presented in the trailer.
Jonathan Kozol revealed the early period’s situation of education in American schools in his article Savage Inequalities. It seems like during that period, the inequality existed everywhere and no one had the ability to change it; however, Kozol tried his best to turn around this situation and keep track of all he saw. In the article, he used rhetorical strategies effectively to describe what he saw in that situation, such as pathos, logos and ethos.