American Dream or Nightmare: Immigrant Exploitation in 'The Jungle'

In the book, “The Jungle” by Upton Sinclair, portrays the harsh working conditions and the exploitation of immigrants seeking the American Dream coming to the United States and settling in the industrial city of Chicago. Upton Sinclair demonstrates the cruel evil of American capitalism by taking advantage of new coming immigrants and taking away their hope in the progressive era through cheap working condition, unequal rights, and political corruption for their own corrupted personal gain.

When immigrants came to America, they believed it was the land of freedom with equal opportunity for economic growth and beliefs. This is what Jurgis Rudkus and his Lithuanian family perceived when they first arrived to the United States. However, that soon changed when the family had to work in harsh labor and were paid in poor wages.

In Sinclair’s novel, he describes the working class life under modern industrial capitalism as brutal for immigrants. They have to work sixteen hours a day in grueling working

Sinclair was trying to do with his novel was that he wanted to demonstrate to the American people the harsh working conditions and exploitationation that immigrants face once coming to the United States. However, Americans didn’t receive this message instead focused on the descriptions of the meatpacking plants and how they would handle their meat in unzanitaty places with rats and employees spitting into steaks, going to the public of the American people. Even though the novel didn’t get across the message that it wanted, it did lead to the “Pure Food and Drug Act and the Meat inspection act,” which ensured that “meat would reach its consumers fresh and disease