The truth can be very explicit, disgusting and revolting, but people have to find the forces to understand it and distinguish the real things from deception. The power of the language is noticed in numerous psychologically-philosophic and social scientific doctrines of human life as the mighty tool to hide and disclose the reality; run the crowd; force and motivate people to do certain things as well as stop them from doing of some actions at all. Unsurprisingly, but famous American writer Upton Sinclair understood the principle of language power better than anyone else in the dawn of 19th century. His works and activity could be compared with the business of muckrakers – the journalists who unfold the scandal and controversial facts about the social life of the country and secret deeds of government. Sinclair saw the things from within and he did not turn his face away from revolting reality of socialism. Instead, he looked in the eyes of human cruelty and brutality, underlining crucial moments of truth in own literature books. The grandiose rhetorical techniques and outstanding verbal approaches only fueled the interest of the public: as a result, Upton Sinclair won the hearts of thousands people due to his heartfelt language of explicit naturalism.
The fame and popularity came to Sinclair with the issuing of “The Jungle” – a sociological novel, the work of public and literature heritage. The story is narrating about the hard destiny of Lithuanian immigrants who seek for freedom and justice in American land. However, their new motherland treats them badly in spite of their fair and clear dreams: the immigrants become the hostages of merciless socialistic labor system of the United States. The main character Jurgis Rudkus suffer...
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... semantic amplitude, and the point of the paragraph is spun from the first to the last sentence with equal tension. Sinclair does not shy to use rhetoric questions which usually remain without answer, addressing them to the people of Chicago. “Will they write the charter of your liberties? Can you not see that the task is your task—yours to dream, yours to resolve, yours to execute?”(4) It is a great deal when Sinclair describes the atmosphere of moral decay, applying the critical pronouns – I, me, you, they – to show the almost global scales of the problem that concerns every common citizen of America.
Every single rhetorical technique is aimed to enforce the atmosphere of merciless and uncompromised social naturalism that takes place in Chicago of that period.
Works Cited
Sinclair, Upton. The Jungle. Charleston, South Carolina: Forgotten Books, 1942. Print.
The novel follows a family of immigrants from Lithuania working in a meatpacking factory, and as the novel progresses, the reader learns of the revolting conditions within the factories. Sinclair’s The Jungle illustrates the concept of Bitzer’s “Rhetorical Situation” and Emerson’s quote quite effectively. For instance, the horrendous safety and health conditions of the packing factories were the exigencies that Upton Sinclair was making clear to the reader. The rhetorical audience that Sinclair aimed to influence with his novel was Congress and the president, as both had to agree in order to establish health and safety bills to better the conditions within factories. Sinclair’s efforts did not go unnoticed as in 1906 both the Meat Inspection Act, and the Pure Food and Drug act were approved by both Congress and President Theodore Roosevelt (Cherny,
1906 would see the publication of Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, pushing through major reforms of the meatpacking industry and eventually causing the government to take actions to protect the health of its people; almost fifty years later, the publication of Rachel Carson's novel Silent Spring would invoke a similar, but changed response to the threat of DDT. Although both would lead to government legislation creating major changes, the original intentions of the authors themselves differed, as well as their satisfaction of the results. However, both still leave a legacy for today, as legislation still stands that reflects the widespread reform that ensued. Both Silent Spring and The Jungle, would have wide reaching influences, but with different motivations and different goals in mind.
Upton Sinclair, the author of The Jungle, wrote this novel to unveil the atrocious working conditions and the contaminated meat in meat-packing workhouses. It was pathos that enabled his book to horrify hundreds of people and to encourage them to take a stand against these meat-packing companies. To obtain the awareness of people, he incorporated a descriptive style to his writing. Ample amounts of imagery, including active verbs, abstract and tangible nouns, and precise adjectives compelled readers to be appalled. Durham, the leading Chicago meat packer, was illustrated, “having piles of meat... handfuls of dried dung of rats...rivers of hot blood, and carloads of moist flesh, and soap caldrons, craters of hell.” ( Sinclair 139). His description
The difficult living situations for many people in the early 20th century were discussed in the novel The Jungle, written by Upton Sinclair. The book describes an immigrant family’s struggle to survive after moving to America. The family experiences unsafe working conditions, dangerous child labor and poverty. Sinclair uses these images to shed light on some of America’s troubles, to disparage capitalism and to promote socialism.
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.
In Upton Sinclair's 1906 novel, “The Jungle,” he exposes corruption in business and government and its disastrous effects on a family from Lithuania. The novel follows immigrant Jurgis Rudkus as he struggles against the slow ANNIHILATION of his family and is REBORN after discovering that socialism as a cure away to all capitalism’s problems. The Jungle is an example of protest literature because it exposes in a muckraking style the DANGEROUS, INHUMAINE conditions that workers lived and worked in, corruption in business and politics and the unsanitary meat that was sold.
In The Jungle, Sinclair deeply understands his subjects and can make the plots real for the reader. Even in a small section of the book, Sinclair makes me feel, imagine and contemplate his words. Chapters 18 through 23, were chapters that Sinclair took time and effort to write and make it to perfection. In my own perspective, I think he achieved this accomplishment and made these chapters a realistic event.
The Jungle, the 1906 exposé of the Chicago meatpacking industry. The novel focuses on an immigrant family and sympathetically and realistically describes their struggles with loan sharks and others who take advantage of their innocence. More importantly, Sinclair graphically describes the brutal working conditions of those who find work in the stockyards. Sinclair's description of the main character's
At the beginnings of the 1900s, some leading magazines in the U.S have already started to exhibit choking reports about unjust monopolistic practices, rampant political corruption, and many other offenses; which helped their sales to soar. In this context, in 1904, The Appeal to Reason, a leading socialist weekly, offered Sinclair $500 to prepare an exposé on the meatpacking industry (Cherny). To accomplish his mission, Sinclair headed to Chicago, the center of the meatpacking industry, and started an investigation as he declared“ I spent seven weeks in Packingtown studying conditions there, and I verified every smallest detail, so that as a picture of social conditions the book is as exact as a government report” (Sinclair, The Industrial Republic 115-16). To get a direct knowledge of the work, he sneaked into the packing plants as a pretended worker. He toured the streets of Packingtown, the area near the stockyards where the workers live. He approached people, from different walks of life, who could provide useful information about conditions in Packingtown. At the end of seven weeks, he returned home to New Jersey, shut himself up in a small cabin, wrote for nine months, and produced The Jungle (Cherny).
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
The Jungle, by Upton Sinclair, emphasizes the importance in changing to become a thriving society through socialism. Sinclair writes his novel to show the corruption that occurs as a result of capitalism. Jurgis’ family is in search for a better life in America where he believes he will make enough pay to support his family. The novel shows that poverty is in control over the working class, but the working class still has a desperation for money. In The Jungle, Upton Sinclair pushes for Socialism by showing Jurgis’ struggle to find work, the hardships of the packingtown workers, and the inequality of all men in this capitalistic society.
The life of an immigrant in the United States during the Gilded Age was a rough one. During this time period, the U.S. went through a dramatic change in dealing with changing infrastructure and masses of people coming over from different countries for a chance at a better life. This time period was characterized by small wage jobs, poor working conditions and the struggle to survive. The Jungle embodies the themes of the Gilded Age with first hand experiences of an immigrant's hardships of life. The main characters of Sinclairs The Jungle, Jurgis and Ona, come over from Lithuania for a chance at a prosperous life in Chicago.
Many impoverished people immigrated to America in hopes of achieving the American Dream but instead were faced with dangerous working conditions while the factory and corporation owners increased their wealth and profit by exploiting this cheap means of labor. Upton Sinclair succeeded to show the nature of the wage slavery occurring in America in the beginning of the twentieth century. People felt distressed and unimportant in the community because they were being used by the wealthy to generate capital leading the industry for the future success and efficacy in the market. Upton Sinclair was an American journalist who incorporated his personal research of the meatpacking industry conditions and people’s life, as well as the structure of the present business into the novel under analysis. Thus, real facts and data were incorporated into this literary work, which helps the audience to feel involved in the work and understand the overall atmosphe...
Additionally, by using dashes and exclamatory remarks, Upton Sinclair recognizes that the effort put in by humans under poor circumstances is not always returned in the way they would imagine. Once the Rudkus family realizes their seller deceived them while purchasing their first home in America, Jurgis exclaims, “It was monstrous, it was unthinkable- they could not do it- it could not be true! Only think what he had suffered for it- the price they had paid for it!” (Sinclair 147). When Robert Lovett writes in his article “Upton Sinclair,” he acknowledges Sinclair’s attachment to his message when he notes:
Throughout Sinclair's novel we see illustrations of corruption at every level. Examples of these acts include the following: Union men who get people ...