In 1906, renowned author Upton Sinclair released his book titled The Jungle. The plot of this book is quite simple as it follows the life of Jurgis Rudkus, a recent immigrant to America. Seeking to start a life with his new family, Jurgis heads to the stockyards and, through some difficulty, procures a job working at a slaughterhouse owned by the beef trust, a major superpower, driven by the production of meat. Through Rudkus, Sinclair powerfully shows the awful realities behind the quality of life for these workers and the damaging effects of adulterated products. The Jungle also serves as a reference to contrast the past to the present and see how far society has progressed. Throughout the years, unions have fought for worker’s rights, increased pay, and safe working conditions. After years of struggling …show more content…
Corn has progressed by large amounts in a short period of time. Less than a hundred years ago, one acre could only produce around 20 bushels of corn. Because of incredible advancements, one acre can now easily produce over 200 bushels of corn (foodinc). In simpler terms, that is over 14.000 lbs. of corn (Huffstetler, 2017). Moreover, corn has been found to be an extremely versatile victual. Michael Pollan (2008) even stated: Corn is the great raw material. You get that big fat kernel of starch and you can break that down and reassemble it. You can make high-fructose corn syrup. You can make maltodextrin and diglycerides and xanthan gum and ascorbic acid. All those obscure ingredients on the processed food-- it 's remarkable how many of them can be made from corn. Plus, you can feed it to animals…. The fact that we had so much cheap corn really allowed us to drive down the price of meat…. the average American is eating over 200 lbs of meat per person per year. That wouldn 't be possible had we not fed them this diet of cheap grain.
Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle" is a novel that depicts the lives of Lithuanian immigrants working in the meatpacking industry in Chicago at the turn of the 20th century. The jungle refers to the harsh and unforgiving environment of the meatpacking district, where workers are subjected to dangerous working conditions, unsanitary living quarters, and exploitation by powerful meatpacking companies. The book opens with Jurgis Rudkus, a strong and proud Lithuanian immigrant, arriving in Chicago with his family. They quickly find work in the meatpacking district, but soon discover that the reality of their new life is far harsher than they had imagined.
The Jungle, written by Upton Sinclair, is about a Lithuanian family that travels to Chicago in pursuit of the American Dream. When writing this novel, Sinclair sought to build support for the Socialist Party and the working class. In preparation for writing The Jungle, Sinclair spent weeks in Chicago’s meat packing plants to study the lives of its stockyard workers. When the novel was first published, readers were more concerned with the health standards and conditions in which the meat was processed rather than the socialist message that Sinclair intended. The Jungle is also often associated with the passage of the Pure Food and Drug Act and the Meat Inspection Act both in 1906, the year the novel was published (Source A).
After the 1906 publication of Upton Sinclair’s novel, The Jungle, American citizens were shocked and confused. An instant hit, the book made Sinclair an immediate celebrity. His most famous quote was pertaining to the impact that The Jungle had on society, he states, “I aimed for the public’s heart, and by accident I hit it in the stomach.” The groundbreaking novel unearthed the lives of poor immigrants living and working in the Chicago stockyards. The story's main character, Jurgis Rudkus, is a Lithuanian immigrant who came to America with the dream of living a happy and content life with his family.
Corn was a mainstay in the early American civilizations. They created a hardy and diverse food. It fed millions and people and was able to be used in a multitude of ways. 2. There was a change of treatment of woman when the religious belief system changed.
Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle is an American novel classic. This book provides a lens into the life of 20th century immigrants working in poor conditions throughout industrialization. Sinclair set out to expose the harsh conditions that these poor immigrants had to live in. By doing so, he wanted to show that not only was the meatpacking industry vile, but also wanted to show that capitalism doesn’t work.
Although its goal of turning America into a socialist society was forgotten, it served as one of the most efficient propaganda pieces on the meat packing industry. A century later the documentary Food, Inc. was produced for the same purpose of drawing attention to the food industry as a whole. Although monopolies on the meat industry have increased after being broken up and food workers treatment is similar to those in The Jungle, there are now more government regulations in place, ensuring food safety to a
Have you ever been in a corn maze? It can be fun to visit a farm with your friends and race through the tall corn stalks to the finish line! The first corn maze ever made was in Pennsylvania. Farmers work hard all year to build these giant mazes. In the spring, they plant a special kind of corn that will grow and stay tall for a long time so lots of people can enjoy the maze.
Emphasized in the film, Food inc. and in the novel Omnivore's Dilemma; corn can be easily sold and bought for a cheap price in the U.S. Many producers split the natural process in half by teaching and forcing the animals to eat corn, which fattens them up quicker than if they were eating food
In early 1900, specifically, 1906, The Jungle by Upton Sinclair was written. This novel told the story of a Lithuanian immigrant who worked in a filthy Chicago meatpacking plant. It exposed the meatpacking industry by stating their vile practices not only towards their meat but their workers as well. This was a result of the combination of many immigrants in the United States to pursue a better life, and the fact that many big industries were looking for ways to maximize their profit.
The American diet? - By improving the farming techniques, the corn production increased. This lowered the price of food, so that people only spent about 16% to 17% of take-home pays in food. By extending the rich of agriculture and transforming the way to farm, food becomes more affordable and fieldworks become easier.
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
When Upton Sinclair, a progressive era muckraker, wrote The Jungle in 1906, he was attempting to bring knowledge of the horrific conditions in Packingtown to the average citizen. His revelations on the terrors of Packingtown helped to slowly improve the lives of the immigrants. Sinclair’s pursuit of knowledge relates to the slowly growing knowledge of the characters in The Jungle. Throughout the story the characters find themselves in many tragic circumstances that could have been more easily avoided if they had been more aware of their surroundings. The immigrants are full of a false hope for success that disillusions the reality of their life.
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
Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle “hit [the readers] in their stomach” rather than in their hearts like he had hoped to. Steve Trott thoroughly writes about Upton Sinclair’s successes and failures as a writer in his piece, “Upton Sinclair and The Jungle.” Sinclair had written the novel in hopes of drawing attention to the “appalling conditions and squalor of wage-laborers under capitalism… [b]ut his objective was lost on the public, overshadowed by unsanitary conditions and inadequate regulation in the meat processing plants” (Trott 2). Because Sinclair based the novel off of a fictional character, Jurgis Rudkus, his reliability fell short.