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Capitalism and its effects on society
The jungle anylitical essay
The Jungle An Essay
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In Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle, the evils of greedy and selfish individuals are concentrated to create a muckraking text in which the flaws and failures of american capitalism are revealed. Sinclair’s use of fictionalized, yet realistic events when regarding the lifestyles of the working class magnifies the moral and ethical corruptions of not capitalism entirely, but specifically the meat packing industry of Chicago (late 1800’s and early 1900’s). It is through the lenses of what is humane and what is not, what is right and what is wrong, that Sinclair’s desire for change can be relayed to the reader’s own heart and mind. These morally and ethically corrupted occurrences are what drive power, and meaning into The Jungle. Sinclair opens the novel by introducing the Lukoszaite/Rudkus family; a lower class, Lithuanian immigrant family living in Chicago. From the beginning, the family begins to work in Packingtown; the meat packing industry of Chicago where thousands upon thousands of …show more content…
Their world begins to truly crumble. As more and more conflict arises from within their lives, Sinclair's oppositions towards capitalism shine through and dig deeper and deeper. The corruption within the way businesses and employers treat the working class shows vibrantly when Jurgis–equipped with no money and exhausted from his constant pursuits to find work– begs a doctor to treat his sick wife. Despite ultimately receiving aide from the doctor, Ona dies in premature labour along with her child leaving Jurgis “gone away himself, stumbling through the shadows, and groping after the soul that had fled.” (217) The family’s situation in a world of intense competition and absent justice leaves them squandering for the resources that will keep them alive. This reflects the extreme damages of capitalism on thousands of lives, and as a result, magnifies Sinclair’s already strong argument for
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,
Upon his 1906 publishing of The Jungle, Sinclair was coined as an avid “muckraker” when President Roosevelt addressed an audience in April of that year. When asked whether or not the novel provided a realistic account of workers conditions within the Chicago meat packing industry, Roosevelt accused Sinclair of being a liar in an attempt to discredit him. A large part of this was credited to Roosevelt’s personal distaste for Sinclair’s apparent link to the Socialist party but, Roosevelt was also unaware that Sinclair had worked undercover at the plant to gather first hand and accurate accounts. The Jungle shined light on the poor working conditions of workers in a meat packing facility. Throughout the novel, Sinclair gave gruesome examples of what workers went through each and every day. Each department of the facility was faced with its own risks and challenges, “There were the wool pluckers, whose hands went to pieces even sooner than the hands of the pickle men; for the pelts of the sheep had to be painted with acid to loosen the wool, and then the pluckers had to pull out this wool with
After Jurgis works in the packing house for a while, a man tells him in Lithuanian that he can now become a citizen. Jurgis is then registered to vote, and told about one of the candidates. Nothing is said of the other candidate, so he votes for the man. that he is told of, and receives money for this vote. Another problem faced by most of the immigrants of Chicago is making a living from it.
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
Upton Sinclair’s “The Jungle,” gave the most in-depth description of the horrid truths about the way America’s food companies, “the only source of food for people living in the city,” are preparing the food they sell. “The Jungle” describes the terrible
In 1906, socialist Upton Sinclair published The Jungle, a book he hoped would awaken the American people to the deplorable conditions of workers in the meat packing industry. Instead, the book sent the country reeling with its description of filthy, rat infested plants, suspect meats processed and sold to consumers, and corrupt government inspectors. President Roosevelt became seriously concerned by the charges brought forth by Mr. Sinclair and determined the only way to protect consumers from unscrupulous business and unsafe food was to enforce regulation.
During the late 1800's and early 1900's hundreds of thousands of European immigrants migrated to the United States of America. They had aspirations of success, prosperity and their own conception of the American Dream. The majority of the immigrants believed that their lives would completely change for the better and the new world would bring nothing but happiness. Advertisements that appeared in Europe offered a bright future and economic stability to these naive and hopeful people. Jobs with excellent wages and working conditions, prime safety, and other benefits seemed like a chance in a lifetime to these struggling foreigners. Little did these people know that what they would confront would be the complete antithesis of what they dreamed of.
Socialism versus Capitalism in The Jungle by Upton Sinclair Even before the beginning of the twentieth century, the debate between socialists and capitalists has raged. In The Jungle, by Upton Sinclair, he portrays capitalism as the cause of all evils in society. Sinclair shows the horrors of capitalism. In The Gospel of Wealth, by Andrew Carnegie, he portrays capitalism as a system of opportunity. However, both Carnegie and Sinclair had something to gain from their writings; both men had an agenda.
Discuss how Upton Sinclair portrays the economic tensions and historical processes at hand in the late 19th and early 20th centuries
Obviously, the lamentations of many of these laborers (at this point in time composed of “New” immigrants, originating from Southern and Eastern Europe) were heard and ignored by those in power, all except one made by author Upton Sinclair, called The Jungle. In this jarring and obviously Socialist-charged novel, Lithuanian immigrant Jurgis Rudkus attempts to pursue the “American Dream” in the meatpacking district of Chicago, Illinois, securing a job, a home, and a future for himself and his family in industrialist America. However, he soon begins to realize that in this world of large corporations, labor unions, and general corruption, success does not come often, and soon loses everything. Despite multiple instances of deceptions and run-ins with the long arm of the law, he attempts to scrape by a living in the city, then countryside, and then back in the city where we discovers a newfound hope for his future; not in religion, but rather the political movement consisting of the working class known as Socialism. Through reading the novel, the graphic descriptions of the working conditions of laborers and the characterization of businesses, labor unions, and the Socialist movement, one can understand the
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
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...
James Truslow Adams coined the term the “American Dream” in his book The Epic of America in 1931 (citation). These two simple words lured millions of people over various decades to America in search of greatness. Wealth, abundant resources, and increased freedoms were rumored to be waiting upon American soil. Upton Sinclair, an American novelist, seized the opportunity of mass immigration to expose America’s dirtiest secrets in his fifth novel The Jungle. The Jungle, published in 1906, depicts the dismal tale of protagonists Jurgis Rudkus, Ona Lukoszaite, and their Lithuanian family, who pursue the “American Dream.” Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle proves the “American Dream” an unobtainable feat.
Capitalism underwent a severe attack at the hands of Upton Sinclair in this novel. By showing the misery that capitalism brought the immigrants through working conditions, living conditions, social conditions, and the overall impossibility to thrive in this new world, Sinclair opened the door for what he believed was the solution: socialism. With the details of the meatpacking industry, the government investigated and the public cried out in disgust and anger. The novel was responsible for the passage of The Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906. With the impact that Sinclair must have known this book would have, it is interesting that he also apparently tried to make it fuction as propaganda against capitalism and pro-socialism.
In the early 1900's life for America's new Chicago immigrant workers in the meat packing industry was explored by Upton Sinclair's novel The Jungle. Originally published in 1904 as a serial piece in the socialist newspaper Appeal to Reason, Sinclair's novel was initially found too graphic and shocking by publishing firms and therefore was not published in its complete form until 1906. In this paper, I will focus on the challenges faced by a newly immigrated worker and on what I feel Sinclair's purpose was for this novel.