These two books give stark reality to the readers of the impoverishment of the American working class as well as the corruption of industry, big business, and even capitalism itself. While their writing styles and subject matter are inherently different, the themes of Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle and John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath are ultimately the same. In this essay I will examine and compare the social, political, and spiritual elements within these novels and how they relate to this class.
The Jungle by Upton Sinclair tells of a family from Lithuania who travels to the United States enticed by the promise of higher wages and an opportunity to flee from their debts. As they start life in the Back of the Yards in Chicago, Illinois they begin to realize they had been swindled but continue to work harder. Unfortunately, the family continues to get taken advantage of and time after time they fall deeper into poverty and sickness. (Sinclair)
Similarly, in The Grapes of Wrath, the Joad family suffers great losses in their home land of Oklahoma that lead them to take all of their belongings and entire twelve-member family across the country to California. They continue despite others telling them that the advertisements of a lush green and prosperous California with job opportunities are untrue. When they get there they find themselves the victims of prejudice and fear with very little work and even less money. (Steinbeck)
In both books, families are conned into leaving their situation for one that promises a better life. Companies hire advertisers to take advantage of those already in poverty and persuade them to come to them and become absolutely dependent on industry. They turn these families from people into repl...
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...s of whether the criticism was negative or positive, it was being read, making it one of the most widely read novels in American history.
At the most basic level, these novels are examples of advocacy for inhumanity and change. The show how working class at the time are being taken advantage of and lied to for the well being of industry and capital growth. These working people are not just replaceable cogs in a machine, they are just as moral and capable of good and evil as the more “civilized” classes. To solve this inhumanity Sinclair would suggest socialism as a cure, where as Steinbeck would argue that the human spirit is the champion. These authors are successful in unearthing the rot in the system and revealing the abuse of humanity. If not resulting in immediate amend then a slow and steady change of heart for the American public and their government.
The Jungle is a vivid novel and I’m going to expose one of the major themes that I found to be unimaginable. It tells the tale of immigrants who were subjected to barbarian working conditions with absolutely no labor laws, I’m also going to use the text book entitled America a Concise History to describe how awful these working conditions were and the changes in labor laws it had in American society. This book describes major problems and changes of what was happening in America at this specific time in American history.
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.
The Grapes of Wrath is a classic piece of American literature that provides an in depth analysis of the great dust bowl. The author, John Steinbeck, illustrated the everyday life of a migrant farmer from the perspective of the Joad family. By describing many important motifs, Steinbeck illustrates the many social and economic transformations that America experienced in the 1930’s. These themes include race, religion, gender, and class. The changes that occurred during this time period forever changed the American way of life.
The Grapes of Wrath is a novel by John Steinbeck that exposes the desperate conditions under which the migratory farm families of America during the 1930's live under. The novel tells of one families migration west to California through the great economic depression of the 1930's. The Joad family had to abandon their home and their livelihoods. They had to uproot and set adrift because tractors were rapidly industrializing their farms. The bank took possession of their land because the owners could not pay off their loan. The novel shows how the Joad family deals with moving to California. How they survive the cruelty of the land owners that take advantage of them, their poverty and willingness to work.
Upton Sinclair’s classic The Jungle analyzes a variety of concerns varying from politics to working conditions in America's capitalist economy. Sinclair highlights key issues for the Progressive Era reform, while he uncovers significant corruption taking place with the country’s rapid industrialization. He was labeled a “muckraker” for exposing the system that privileges the powerful. Upton Sinclair states that the paramount goal for writing his book was to improve worker conditions, increase wages, and put democratic socialism as a major political party. The book shocked the public nation by uncovering the unhealthy standards in the meatpacking industry it also resulted in a congressional investigation.
In the world of economic competition that we live in today, many thrive and many are left to dig through trashcans. It has been a constant struggle throughout the modern history of society. One widely prescribed example of this struggle is Upton Sinclair's groundbreaking novel, The Jungle. The Jungle takes the reader along on a journey with a group of recent Lithuanian immigrants to America. As well as a physical journey, this is a journey into a new world for them. They have come to America, where in the early twentieth century it was said that any man willing to work an honest day would make a living and could support his family. It is an ideal that all Americans are familiar with- one of the foundations that got American society where it is today. However, while telling this story, Upton Sinclair engages the reader in a symbolic and metaphorical war against capitalism. Sinclair's contempt for capitalist society is present throughout the novel, from cover to cover, personified in the eagerness of Jurgis to work, the constant struggle for survival of the workers of Packingtown, the corruption of "the man" at all levels of society, and in many other ways.
Author Upton Sinclair published the novel The Jungle in 1906. In his novel, Sinclair wrote of a Lithuanian immigrant family who moved to Chicago in the early twentieth century, who was struggling to make ends meet. The author explained how immigrants in this time era experienced difficulties adapting to the new society of America, and its conditions. Sinclair’s novel described how immigrants’ lives, experiences, and choices were effected by social class, racism, and sexism. He produced very strong examples, some more significant than others, which illustrated how immigrants were effected.
The Jungle by Upton Sinclair exemplifies a muckraking style in its often gory depictions of life in a meat packing factory, Sinclair writes of how the meat packing industry exploits its workers, many of whom are uneducated and poor in the same way a capitalist government exploits it's working class. Sinclair uses Symbolism in terms of physical objects, Objects that serve a metaphorical purpose, and oppressive tone, to persuade the reader that Capitalism leads to the declination and corruption of America and that the only way to remedy this is socialistic government.
“Everybody wants a little piece of lan'. I read plenty of books out here. Nobody never gets to heaven, and nobody gets no land. It's just in their head. They're all the time talkin' about it, but its jus' in their head.” (Steinbeck) The Grapes of Wrath is most often categorized as an American Realist novel. It was written by John Steinbeck and published in 1939. As a result of this novel, Steinbeck won the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, and prominently cited the novel when he won the Nobel Prize a little over twenty years after the text’s publication. This text follows the Joad family through the Great Depression. It begins in Oklahoma, watching as the family is driven from their home by drought and economic changes. Within the introduction of the novel the living conditions is described, “Every moving thing lifted the dust into the air: The walking man lifted a thin layer as high as his waist, and a wagon lifted the dust as high as the fence tops and an automobile boiled a cloud behind it.” (Grapes, 1) This novel is and will remain one of the most significant novels of the Great Depression. Despite its controversial nature it is timeless. In fact, the ending of this text is one of the most controversial pieces of literature written during the time period, and has never accurately made its way into film. The ending to John Steinbeck’s novel The Grapes of Wrath is the most significant portion of the novel due to its historical accuracy as well as its message about the American spirit.
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck, shows a whole family and their struggles. The grapes of Wrath is modeled after a biblical reference to the Israelites, god¹s chosen people. They also left their land, Egypt, and wandered into the desert for many years,searching in vain for a promised land, the land of milk and honey. A lot like the Israelites, many farmers in the middle of the country began migrating to California. The Joads I believe had no choice but to leave the dust bowl to find work. They also had to cross the desert and lost the life of Grandma Joad in the process.
“The Jungle,” written by Upton Sinclair in 1906, describes how the life and challenges of immigrants in the United States affected their emotional and physical state, as well as relationships with others. The working class was contrasted to wealthy and powerful individuals who controlled numerous industries and activities in the community. The world was always divided into these two categories of people, those controlling the world and holding the majority of the power, and those being subjected to them. Sinclair succeeded to show this social gap by using the example of the meatpacking industry. He explained the terrible and unsafe working conditions workers in the US were subjected to and the increasing rate of corruption, which created the feeling of hopelessness among the working class.
The 1930’s were a decade of great change politically, economically, and socially. The Great Depression and the Dust Bowl wore raw the nerves of the people, and our true strength was shown. From it arose John Steinbeck, a storyteller of the Okies and their hardships. His books, especially The Grapes of Wrath, are reflections of what really went on in the 1930’s. John Steinbeck did not write about what he had previously read, he instead wrote what he experienced through his travels with the migrant workers. “His method was not to present himself notebook in hand and interview people. Instead he worked and traveled with the migrants as one of them, living as they did and arousing no suspicion from employers militantly alert against “agitators” of any kind.” (Lisca 14) John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath was derived from his personal experiences and his journeys with the migrant workers.
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 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.
In "The Grapes of Wrath", Steinbeck takes a great leap forward in his storytelling. His characters are better developed and more human. Steinbeck's development as a writer was linked to his growth as a person and his furthered capacity for understanding in others, particularly the disenfranchised. The process and struggle that ensued during the early years of his career were instrumental in his growth and are demonstrated in the development of his views on industrialization and it's effects on the working class.