Socialism In Upton Sinclair's The Jungle

How did Upton Sinclair’s “The Jungle” Impact the Meat Factories during the Progressive Age? During the late 1800s and early 1900s a new stage in the United States began, called the Progressive Era. Over the years, America developed into an industrial working country although, like every country the social and economical problems were becoming an issue. Those who were on top were corrupted and vile while those who did the majority of the work took long hours and low pay.

How The Jungle Shows Problems with Socialism in the 18-1900´s Upton Sinclair was a muckraker so it shouldn’t come to a shock when it is said that Upton wrote The Jungle as a way to identify different problems with society during his time period. Some of these problems that were included in The Jungle are political corruption, socialism is bad, life was hard for immigrants. With the turn of events that happened in The Jungle, it could easily persuade people to believe that there was lots of corruption during the early 1900´s time period. This essay is written to persuade you that the main problems is corruption. Many major events in the book revolved around corruption.

Phelps suggests, “First, students love it... even undergraduates who consider history “boring” respond to The Jungle” (2). The incredible detail of the events that occurs at the meatpacking industry that Sinclair uses in this novel has made even uninterested students interested. Sinclair criticizes the unfairness of capitalism as well. Phelps comments, “The objective was to break the unions, drive down wages, and speed up processing” (2). The purpose of capitalism was to allow the upper class to remain in power, such as Connor and Scully, while restricting the working class, such as Jurgis and Ona, from obtaining enough money to support their families.

The working condition of Durham’s meat-packing and fertilizer industries are extremely hazardous. The industry floors are described as “half an inch deep with blood” (43), and workers have little to no protection. Jurgis, a determined worker, labors for the sake of providing for his family. Naive as he is, Jurgis does not understand the unforgiving nature of the industry until it is too late.

The thesis of Sinclair’s The Jungle is that capitalism is not good for everyone, and that socialism can fix the problems capitalism has created in American society. However, the major reforms that came from The Jungle were reforms in the meatpacking industry such as the Meat

However, “…nobody rose in Packingtown by doing good work…they would “speed him up” till they had worn him out…” (40), Jurgis face the same fate as the people he saw when first arrived in Chicago, being used and thrown away the same way the factory butchered the hog, made use of each ounce, and disposed of the remaining. Throughout

Capitalism shown through the two articles, The Jungle and Fast Food Nation, is an underlying flaw in the meatpacking industry.

This provided Sinclair with an advantage when comparing himself to other novelist during this time, because he didn’t only see how this mass production was at play, but he was also able to hear first-hand accounts of the emotional and physical sturggles that the workers were facing. Furthermore, Barrett explains how Sinclair refused to sugar-coat or dust over any areas of great disturbance within this industry. Barrett adds, “Sinclair’s real genius, clearly displayed in The Jungle, was an unrelenting realism in describing the grittier details of life among common people” (xv). This is a very important aspect of this novel, because despite the stomach-churring details and scenes that one may have experienced, instead of masking it and creating something that is less significant, Sinclair dove deep into the depths of the packing industry, and uncovered every hidden corner of the packing industry. However, Barret explains that because of Sinclair’s extensive detail within the pages of The Jungle, the overall goal that Sinclair initially wanted to achieve was partially skewed, by ‘accidently hitting the public in the stomach rather than their hearts’

Rough Draft Since the publication of The Jungle back in 1906, it remains a very impacting novel in American history. While it may not have any ghouls or goblins, The Jungle is miles past a horror story. In what is arguably Sinclair’s best work, he vividly depicts the terrors of life in the meatpacking industry, and the barbarous working conditions that come along with it. This novel illustrates the different ways the industrialization process destroys the lives of workers by bombarding them both physically and emotionally with: deplorable working conditions, harsh weather, and government corruption. Through the view of Sinclair’s fictional character Jurgis, he uncovers all of the lies and corruption that was masqueraded by capitalism, and he

Living and Dying in Packingtown, Chicago In 1904, Upton Sinclair viewed/took after the modern town of Packingtown, Chicago. In view of what he saw of industry and its specialists, he composed The Jungle. Sinclair's motivation for The Jungle was "to show Americans how insidious the business - and by expansion, (a framework where individuals claim cash and profitable things)- had got to be" (pg. 72) and to (achieve or pick up with exertion) better working conditions. He composed of Lithuanian individual (who enters a nation)

Upton Sinclair portrays the economic tension in the United States during the late 19th and early 20th centuries through his novel “The Jungle”. He used the story of a Lithuanian immigrant, Jurgis Rudkus, to show the harsh situation that immigrants had to face in the United States, the unsanitary and unsafe working conditions in the meatpacking plants, as well as the tension between the capitalism and socialism in the United States during the early 1900s. In the late 19th century and early 20th centuries, there were massive immigrants move into the United States, and most of them were from Europe. The protagonist, Jurgis Rudkus, like many other immigrants, have the “America Dream” which they believe America is heaven to them, where they can

The Jungle written by Upton Sinclair was an expose on the life of those who lived in Packingtown, Chicago. Packingtown was where most of the people who was looking for work lived, it was a very crowded city. Job openings were scarce and most of the jobs were very unsafe. Most of the people in this part of town were poor, so they did not really have much doubts of food,. The Jungle exposed the horrific work conditions, the poor food quality, and the deceitfulness of the business owners.

The Jungle In the literary work, The Jungle, the author, Upton Sinclair makes a commentary on the deceitful and dark truth of the American dream. This was achieved by using the canned meat that was produced in Packingtown as a symbol to represent the dream that all the immigrants had about their new lives in America. As the story progresses, the reader, along with the protagonist, Jurgis will discover that the American dream lies cloaked behind a shroud of beautiful lies that masks the vile truths that are the American dream and the canned “beef” processed by the corrupt meat business in Packingtown.

Thus, Sinclair’s purpose of writing The Jungle failed to bring readers to advocate for the rights of workers trapped in the low wages, unsafe working conditions, and long hours of meatpacking factories, but rather, succeeded in opening the country’s eyes to the meatpacking practices that went on behind closed doors and the establishment administrations to protect the public from these unscrupulous

“The great corporation which employed you lied to you, and lied to the whole country—from top to bottom it was nothing but one gigantic lie” (Upton Sinclair).The revolutionary figure that will be addressed in this essay is the one and only Upton Sinclair. Through most of his life, starting from the age of 14, Sinclair was invested in voicing his opinions through fiction. He did this by taking a real-life issue and integrating it into the plot of his literature while a point of view in that literature is given to a fictional character representing something or someone related to the real-life issue. Although Upton Sinclair didn’t intend to, he improved the meat-packing industry’s cleanliness and ethics by revealing unethical practices and being