...In The Jungle, Jurgis Rudkis is a man who leaves his homeland of Lithuania to pursue the American Dream and all it might offer him, his fiancé Ona and her family. Along the way he and his immigrant family face horrendous living and working conditions, cruelty and unimaginable heartache. Jurgis values and morals are in direct opposition with the capitalist society he encounters. These oppositions and the harsh living and working conditions change him and cloud his judgment, but the cruelest irony is that life in America robs him of his most treasured possession: Ona’s love. To better understand why Jurgis is challenged by living in America, we need to look at his past and history with his intended bride, Ona. He was a big, strong country boy with broad shoulders and giant hands. Jurgis was raised in “the midst of the wilderness” (Sinclair 30) in Lithuania, a decedent from generations of peasant class. When he saw tiny,...
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...very different standards and expectations when they read a novel. One character from a modern novel may not be very compelling to someone from one hundred years ago, but Jurgis, the main character of The Jungle, has characteristics that appeal to such a reader. His virtues and beliefs are examples of what Americans back then admired, and those admirable and relatable qualities help Sinclair to persuade the reader into considering socialism. The first and most relatable trait of Jurgis is his place in society. “...they had come to be unskilled laborers in Packingtown.” His status as just another common and poor laborer makes him more appealing to the average reader since the likelihood of the reader being a commoner is much higher than that of a wealthy person. Relatable characters tend to stand out...
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...Judicial, legislation, and executive, all branches of government, congress and the senate, all able to send people to jail, hurt them, yet also save them. To pass a law helping healthcare or the homeless only takes majority vote and an “OK” from the president. To stop a construction of a pipeline that could damage large amounts of water only takes one man… but it does not happen. Rich people contain convenience that the poor may never be able to acquire. They use their power as a tool, but not for the right reasons, they seek to benefit themselves. The Jungle, by Upton Sinclair tells the story of Jurgis, a Lithuanian man, and his experiences after moving to America. He came to the country to find hope and happiness among wealth in order to...
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...immigrants were often poor and uneducated and were likely considered peasants in their own countries. Jurgis Rudkus, a fictionalized character in Upton Sinclair's novel, The Jungle is an example of such a person. Jurgis is from Lithuania and comes to America in search of the American dream. At the beginning of the novel Jurgis comes to America as any other typical European immigrant. He dreams of America as being a land where a man with little can rise through the ranks and ultimately become a man with wealth and prosperity. Jurgis quickly realizes that industrial America is a land of heartache, where a willing man is exploited and used as energy to fuel the never ending industrial machine. At the end of the novel Jurgis learns that the great land of America has its limitations, but at a cost as he loses his wife and child and spends stints in jail for trying to defy the machine. Thus, the novel, The Jungle exemplifies how immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe in the early 1900s could not fully realize and achieve the American dream no matter how hard they toiled and worked in the brutal American factories of the time. A jungle is an area of madness and chaos where animals roam free and one either eats or is eaten. Upton Sinclair titled his novel, The Jungle because urban Chicago exemplified all of the same traits that a jungle possessed except for the fact that the jungle of...
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...“The Jungle” American Protest Literature Analysis 211 In Class Essay In the early 20th century, America was in the process of becoming the most industrial cities in the world. With the increase of factories across the country, stories were becoming more popular. One the most well-known stories from the novel titled “The Jungle”, written by Upton Sinclair. In the American Protest Literature text, I was able to see certain chapters of Upton Sinclair’s novel which peeked my interest. Upton’s techniques of persuading the readers, during that time, were able to have the realization of the harsh conditions of working the factory, however many of the readers have had a negative opinion towards his novel, believing it supporting communistic views. While I was unable to read the full novel, I was able to read certain important chapters from “The Jungle” by reading its section in American Protest. The story is about the Sinclair’s main protagonist named “Jurgis”, who is an immigrant from Europe. When he moves to America with his family, he starts to witness the harsh...
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...In 1906, Upton Sinclair's Book The Jungle was published in book form; it had previously been published as a newspaper serial in 1905. Few works of literature have changed history in the United States so much as The Jungle did when it was published. Does Sinclair Lewis make a compelling argument for socialism in his book, The Jungle? I think that the answer to this question is going to be dependent on what you end up believing about socialism. A die hard socialist is probably going to point to Sinclair's ending with zeal and passion because it proves that Jurgis could only find a home when renouncing capitalism and its perverse interpretation of the American Dream. I think that Sinclair believed in the socialist ending of his novel. Yet, I want to pivot the question a bit. While the socialist claim might not be persuasive, like Marx himself, Sinclair is probably more eloquent on suggesting that the current capitalist system, the one being written about at the turn of the century, is in desperate need of repair. His persuasion might lie in his critique of capitalism more than his embrace of socialism. “The Jungle by Upton Sinclair, exposed the nauseating conditions of Chicago’s meat packing industry.” (Goldfield, David R. The American Journey: A History of the United States.) He couldn't have been very happy that the book gained fame for a different reason, but nonetheless it did gain a significant amount of fame and get that message of socialism is better than communism...
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...On February 26, 1906, Upton Sinclair released The Jungle, a novel written about the life of a Lithuanian family moving to America and the hardships they faced there. Sinclair, a Socialist and a muckraker reporter wrote the novel in hopes of gaining supporters of the Socialist party. What he ended up doing was single handily cause the formation of the Food and Drug Administration after he showed the nation what was really happening with their food. Yet looking at the work as what it’s meant to be, an exposure of the negative effects of a capitalist society on the impoverished citizens, was Sinclair’s indictment a fair assessment. The novel The Jungle, follows the story of Jurgis Rudkus and his new family as they move to America in search of...
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...The Jungle by Upton Sinclair Compared to Modern Day Meat Processing The theme of Upton Sinclair’s novel The Jungle is that capitalism is the devil. In the novel, capitalism is made out to be absolutely evil, one reason being that they (the meat companies) willfully put contaminated meat on the market for the oblivious consumers. There are several ways that the meat-packing practices from the novel are similar to how meat is processed today. The first similarity is that slaughterhouses were and have been treating animals very brutally; also, the slaughterhouses in the book were just as unsafe to work in as the slaughterhouses today. People are taking major risks just by going to work. The second similarity is that contaminated meat is being sold and served to the consumers. Another similarity is that if you get hurt on the job and become disabled for several months, a lot of companies will stop paying you or possibly lay you off. The last similarity between The Jungle and modern-day meat processing is that meat companies can and will sue you or throw you in jail if you “spill the beans” or defend yourself or your family. First of all, the slaughterhouses and meat factories are just as filthy, cruel, and unsafe as the slaughterhouses and meat factories from the early nineteen-hundreds (time period in which The Jungle takes place). The novel says that animals are brought into pens, suffer, and are slaughtered. In slaughterhouses today, animals are rounded up, placed somewhere...
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...paved with gold, rather they were welcomed by streets paved with trash and the air filled with smoke and pungent odors, as presented in the book The Jungle. The Jungle is a novel written by Upton Sinclair that displayed the severe working and living conditions that immigrants were forced to deal with. Upton Sinclair portrays the economic tensions and historical processes in hand in the late 19th, early 20th century showing us factory conditions, housing conditions, and political corruption through the eyes of an immigrant family. Writing the novel through the eyes of the family allows readers to feel sympathetic towards the family, and is why this book was so effective in bringing attention to the circumstances that the lower class was put in. The Jungle is about an immigrant family from Lithuania who came to the United States being promised a better life, however as soon as...
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...The Jungle In Upton Sinclair’s novel The Jungle, the main character Jurgis brings his Lithuanian family to America in order to seek prosperity. They take up residence in Chicago, where they find employment in Packingtown. There the family undertakes risky tasks under unstable conditions, giving them a troublesome realization that their ideal life in America was far from reality. Not long after, a bitter winter and sickness hits the family, showing them that sacrifices have to be made in order to make do. Through his novel, Sinclair aspires to connect with the readers in an emotional appeal, however his gruesome details of the meat-packing industry cause the readers to focus more on what could be on their own plates at home. Sinclair, aiming directly to the heart of his readers, successfully did so when Jokubas toured the family through Packingtown. Instead of being a thriving homeland full of assurance, Chicago proved to be a...
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...Emily Andes Mr. Hardy AP English 3 Period 2 Literary Analysis Essay The Jungle and Fast Food Nation have become two worldwide known books for exposing the meat industry, and both were able to change the viewpoints of many people on what they eat. With the meat sales sky rocketing since 1961, our society can thank the inspections and production side of the meat industry. The Jungle, written by Upton Sinclair, was one of the first books to uncover the gruesome side of the meat packing factories. With this book the world was introduced to the exposed side of the meat factories in unsanitary conditions. Of course, Sinclair’s intention was not to write The Jungle in an effort to unveil the dirty side to the meat packing factories, but it was intended to be a love story between a young couple immigrating from Lithuania to the United States. Along with The Jungle is Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser. The statistical side of this book was also intended to expose the meat industry but by humiliating fast food restaurants and where their meat products were coming from. People were appalled by the facts this book gave, and they began having new perspectives on fast food. Overall, Fast Food Nation appeals to readers’ senses of ethos pathos and logos then The Jungle does. First of all, Schlosser does a much better job of convincing people to change their views on fast food products and all meat products in general. His diction choices are pedantic and factual, his details become emotional...
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...Whenever you hear "The Jungle" most think of a tropical forest full of thick, brightly colored plants and trees containing various types of animals. However, the book The Jungle is a novel written by the American journalist and muckraker Upton Sinclair. Sinclair wrote the novel to expose the harsh conditions and exploited lives of immigrants in the meatpacking industry of Chicago. So how do the two relate? The novel's title symbolizes the competitive nature of capitalism. The life of living in Packingtown is like living in a jungle, in which the strong prey on the weak and all living things are engaged in a violent, brutal fight for survival. In the book, you only see the use of the word "jungle" once. This being when Jurgis has been drinking and decides to sleep with a prostitute. The novel also seems to compare Jurgis' sexual desire to that of a beast in the jungle. Therefore associating jungles with uncontrolled desires. This being said, the awful conditions of the workers in Packingtown are the result of the uncontrollable human desire for money. The Jungle is about bringing to light human greed and the social damage it does. The images of "beasts" that live in the jungle also depicts violence and brutality – another huge theme of Sinclair's analysis of life in Packingtown. Sinclair describes capitalism as destructive because he shows it...
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...The cruel economic system in The Jungle led Jurgis and others to a life of oppression and injustice. The corruption of capitalism affects everyone around it and eventually leads every character to destruction. From Jurgis and Ona to the bad conditions of the city, the industry set up is detrimental in more ways than not. Upton Sinclair portrays the evils of capitalism throughout the book as the characters’ motives become distorted. The government system causes calamity to run all throughout Packingtown. Packingtown is a city filled with crime and lawlessness, caused by the inadequate system set up by the the people in authority. “That was their law, that was their justice! Jurgis stood upright, trembling with passion,” (167). For an example,...
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...of President Roosevelt and the government. Upton Sinclair published The Jungle in 1906 and it was a catalyst for the reform of the country's food safety laws and standards. Sinclair was placed under muckraker through this novel because he displayed the corrupt sides of businesses to the public. The book portrayed the conditions of the meatpacking industry in Chicago through the eyes of Jurgis, an immigrant. Sinclair, through Jurgis, noted the shocking and disgusting conditions and methods utilized in the industry. Animals were slaughtered in a frightening and cruel way while workers transferred diseases and germs to those animals. Employees were ill and...
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...In The Jungle, by Upton Sinclair, the author depicts the story of a young and hardworking man, Jurgis Rudkus, and his family’s struggles in the American economic system of the early twentieth century. Coming from Lithuania with the hopes of a better life, Jurgis’ family lands in Chicago with the pursuit to prosper in the new and exciting land. From the start, the family encounters trouble: scammers in both Lithuania and America deplete the family’s savings, the saloon-keeper at Jurgis and Ona’s wedding overprices them for the amount of alcohol guests have consumed, and the conditions of Packingtown are not what they expected. In the ensuing chapters, the family’s luck changes from bad to worse when a multitude of family members die and jobs are repeatedly taken away from many of the group. Sinclair demonstrates through the optimistic and naive Rudkus-Lukoszaite family that American capitalism is destructive to the common worker and the immigrant class. In the proclaimed “wage slavery,” Sinclair describes how the immigrant population was "dependent for its opportunities of life, upon the whim of men every bit as brutal and unscrupulous as the old-time slave drivers” (Sinclair 126). In Chicago, the immigrant...
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