The Jungle by Upton Sinclair

1846 Words4 Pages

The Jungle, written by Upton Sinclair was a very touching and motivating story. Sinclair aimed for our hearts, but instead, he hit our stomachs. The Jungle is a story of hardships and trouble, some successes and many failures as a family tries to achieve the "American Dream." In this book, "The Jurgis Ruckus' myth of failure is the other side of the Horatio Alger's myth of success." (xxvi)

Although this book was written about the hardships of a family, it was not just a story for one to read and feel sympathy for the family, but it had many "real-life" reasons behind the events that went on and happened. Sinclair wanted to open the eyes of people and make them aware of what was going on, and ultimately, wanted to start a revolution to change the political system from capitalism to socialism.

The time period was about 1905-06. Immigrants, such as Jurgis and his family, came over to America in hopes of creating a new life and to live out the "American Dream." Little did they know what they were up against, and just how hard this "American Dream" life was. Families came to find new lives, decent jobs, save up money, live in a great house, have food on the table and yet, many things hindered them from that. According to Horatio Alger the "America Dream" was a dream of going from rags to riches. One could only achieve it with lots of hard work and motivation and self determination, and in the end, Alger's theory of the "American Dream" is proved to be wrong, as shown in many ways.

The life of Jurgis and his family shows in many ways how much of a struggle it was to fulfill the "American Dream." There were many, many immigrant families that flocked over to America, and the first thing they did was try and find jobs; only, it wa...

... middle of paper ...

... satisfaction guaranteed because of the FDA. It must be inspected and approved by them. And also, on everything that we buy as consumers, we can read what is in the product because of the label; the FDA requires every ingredient to be listed.

Along side of the FDA was the Meat Inspection Act of 1906. This put strains on and required the slaughterhouses to clean up. Sanitation became a big issue, and the slaughterhouses were now inspected for cleanliness. Also, every animal carcass to be inspected and pass inspection before it could be processed and used any further; it had to be cleared of infection and diseases.

These changes did not happen over night. It took time, and even now is still being improved more and more each year. The structure of government has changed and still is being improved each year to, to protect and satisfy the common good of the population.

Open Document