...Impacts of The Jungle on American Society As Judith Lewis Herman exhorted in her novel, Trauma and Recovery, "The ordinary response to atrocities is to banish them from consciousness” (“Trauma and Recovery Quotes”). However, a nationwide nerve was struck when the grotesque meat- packing industry was revealed by Upton Sinclair. He blazoned to Americans across the country the lurid details of the industry though his novel, The Jungle, a novel which changed American history. [This scathing review on the meat packing industry with socialist undertones brought an advent of great social and legal change to the United States.] With its stunning entrance into American literature in 1906, The Jungle created an uproar that has endured over a century since its publication. Upton Sinclair was an ardent proponent of socialism in America and yearned to reform the ailing country (Fogel). His novel was produced as a metaphor, comparing a jungle directly to the corrupt meat packing industry based in Chicago. Sinclair sought to expose the unknown atrocities hidden in the meat packing industry, which was not forced to obey any form of regulation (Shafer). Sinclair wrote that, “It was like some horrible crime committed in a dungeon, all unseen and unheeded, buried out of sight and of memory” (Sinclair 56). This fictional piece of literature brought America to a screeching halt. Never before had such a bold statement been made about an industry that affected almost every single American. Upton’s...
Words: 1435 - Pages: 6
...The Jungle In the early 1900's life in Chicago was met with an overwhelming amount struggles for the working class. Families were forced to send their children to work in factories, jobs paid barley paid enough to scrape by, and jobs were often extremely unsafe. In his book, The Jungle, Upton Sinclair makes it clear that working life in America is miserable, and changes need to be made. For Sinclair this change is socialism, a form of government that focuses on economic equality for all. Sinclair believed that socialism would save the American people from the corruption and greed caused by the capitalistic system, but Americans knew very little of socialism or the possible benefits. Sinclair decided to take the political movement into his...
Words: 872 - Pages: 4
...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...
Words: 731 - Pages: 3
...Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle Upton Sinclair wrote his book The Jungle in 1906. This book was a huge success. Sinclair was born on September 20, 1878, in Baltimore, Maryland. Sinclair grew up poor with his mother and father. His mother sent him to his richer family on his mother's side. He started to write children’s stories and humor pieces in magazines at age 14. He also he started writing stories at age 16. At 18, he graduated from New York City University. After the success of The Jungle, Sinclair started to write more books with a political message. To write the book, The Jungle, Sinclair had to go undercover at a meat packing factory and expose how the industry had mistreated workers and had unsanitary conditions. The Jungle, by Upton Sinclair, is the book that he is most known for because it was able to change the law, it fit into a popular kind of writing called muckraking, and his political views were different from most peoples’ in America....
Words: 868 - Pages: 4
...economic and social changes that greatly affected American society. The Progressives emerged when reacting to problems that were caused by the massive growth of immigrants into large cities. Progressives, at first, concentrated on improving the lives of people and immigrants living in the poorest areas, and then on getting rid of corruption in government. (Constitutional Rights Foundation) Journalists of this time took advantage of the opportunity to show the American people how corrupt many of the health systems were. In 1902, magazine publishers discovered that their sales increased dramatically when they highlighted popular stories of political corruption, corporate misconduct, or other offenses. (Gilder Lehrman Institute) The novelist Upton Sinclair also played a large role during this new era in the fight...
Words: 1129 - Pages: 5
...In The Jungle, Upton Sinclair describes the horrors of living in a capitalist society to make a compelling argument for socialism. Capitalism is where people compete to be higher than another. It is based on making a profit individually. Whereas Socialism is where things are discussed to meet everyones needs. In The Jungle, Sinclair uses examples of the living and working conditions, unfair wages, and the selfish people who trick the poor out of their money to show how capitalism is bad. The living and working conditions were not healthy or sanitary because the American corporations could afford to slack off on their responsibilities. The houses and working places were not being monitored by the state. Jurgis and his family were “foreign” to New York, and only heard good things of it. When they moved there, the living conditions were as bad, if not worse than where they came from. Jurgis and is family are forced to live in crowded boarding houses which had been built on land that was once a dump. Multiple families live together in crowded rooms in order the pay the high rents. They are easily swindled because of their naivety. Children have no place to play and end up playing in the dumps. The working conditions are also terrible. Jurgis works for a meat packing company and they are many workers hurt on the job. On top of that, the company is so unsanitary that some people died from these horrible conditions. Another terrible thing that goes on in the meat packing company...
Words: 679 - Pages: 3
...The quote, “It is not what an author says, but what he or she whispers, that is important” means that every story has a deeper meaning then what it appears to be on the outside. For the reader to truly absorb and learn from the book, the reader has to explore a little bit deeper than just the obvious. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain and The Jungle by Upton Sinclair are both pieces of literature that support the above quote, because in order for the reader to truly understand the meaning behind these two pieces of literature, the reader must really tune in on what the two authors are try to get across to the reader. In The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Huckleberry had a lot of personal obstacles that Huck is forced to overcome, as did Jurgis in The Jungle. In The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Huck is not just a boy that ran away. Huck is a boy that many times was forced to go against the crowd when it came to certain decisions with slavery. An example of when Mark Twain had a hidden meaning in his literature is on pages 249 and 250: “It was a close place. I took . . . up [the letter I’d written to Miss Watson], and held it in my hand. I was a-trembling, because I’d got to decide, forever, betwixt two things, and I knowed it. I studied a minute, sort of holding my breath, and then says to myself: “All right then, I’ll go to hell”—and tore it up. It was awful thoughts and awful words, but they was said. And I let them stay said; and never thought no more about...
Words: 1346 - Pages: 6
...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...
Words: 765 - Pages: 4
...Overview Upton Sinclair illustrates The Jungle with frightening detail, obviously making us ponder the question- “Do you think a man could make up a thing like that out of his head?” (page 269). The story follows a young Lithuanian, Jurgis, his newly wed wife, Ona, and the rest of his Slavic family. They immigrate to Chicago and a place called Packingtown, where the only work to be found there is in the cruel, merciless machinery inside the meat and canning factories. Jurgis finds himself quickly in debt without the pay he needs for his family and him; his deprivation of money coming from the lack of pay he’s getting from the painful factories he works in. After losing some of his loved ones to the diseases and terrible treatment of the workers, and the citizens no less, Jurgis and Ona find themselves struggling for survival, and Jurgis finds himself in jail after assaulting his wife’s boss (for raping Ona). The agony eats at him in his thirty days of imprisonment, only to find that his family has lost the house and is living deeply in poverty. What’s worse- his second son is stillborn to his wife who dies giving birth. With the loss of Ona, Jurgis goes into a dark depression, especially with him fighting to find another job. His only joy in his world is his baby son, Antanas, who dies from drowning about a year later. Having lost his only son and desperately trying to find a job, for he was blacklisted, Jurgis gives up and decides to “hobo it” as he hitches a ride and travels...
Words: 1975 - Pages: 8
...Hassaan Zainul Ms. Luongo English 10 2 November 2015 Upton Sinclair is one of the most recognized authors in history for his writing of “The Jungle”. Upton Sinclair was born is Baltimore, Maryland and he was raised in New York City. His parents were poor while his grandparents were rich and his aunt was wealthy marrying a millionaire. Sinclair often spent night at his grandparents’ house this allowing him insight on how the rich and the poor lived. Sinclair was a keen student, he entered New York City College at the age of fourteen, and he funded his education by writing newspaper and magazine stories. By the age of seventeen he was adequately successful at that time, owning his own apartment and able to give financial support to his parents....
Words: 401 - Pages: 2
...Over the course of seven weeks in 1904, journalist Upton Sinclair entered Chicago’s meatpacking industry and...
Words: 949 - Pages: 4
...In the 1900s, the food and labor industry were far from perfect. Food was produced in plants that were ridden with diseases and vermin, while workers were exposed to unsafe labor conditions and horrible treatment. To uncover these issues, Upton Sinclair wrote The Jungle, a novel about the meatpacking industry of Chicago in the early 1900s. His upbringing and what was happening in the country during his life heavily weighed in on his reason to write the novel. Because of his socialist views and realistic writing, Upton Sinclair was able to revolutionize the food industry of his time with his novel, The Jungle. Upton Sinclair was born in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1878. As an only child, he grew up in poverty but also experience the privileges...
Words: 1281 - Pages: 6
...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...
Words: 2352 - Pages: 10
...The Jungle: A View of Industrial America The industrial revolution of the 1800s had a dramatic effect on economic and social life around the globe. The economics of industrialized nations shifted from agriculture to manufacture from rural to urban. Thanks to innovation and technology, energy production and manufacturing, factories produced a large quantity of new products at lower prices. Besides, urban areas swell to bolster new businesses. In the long run individuals were rushing to the developing urban areas searching for work and a superior life. But factory life did not live up to its promise. The workers had few rights, wages were low, hours were long, working conditions were regularly hazardous and unemployment or more terrible was constantly only a mishap away. Particularly, these harsh working conditions were common the turn of the 20th century. In 1906 Upton Sinclair published the...
Words: 1375 - Pages: 6
...Paragraph 1: His background. Upton Sinclair was born in Baltimore, Maryland in September of 1878. He died in November of 1968 at the age of 90 in New Jersey. He was married three different times over his long life. According to his Wikipedia page his family did not have much money however his grandparents was quite wealthy, this gave him the advantage of seeing how wealthy and poor people lived. Seeing the 19th century from that point of view definitely had an impact on his writings. He loved reading as a child and read as many books of his mother’s that he could. When he was 14 he began attending the City College of New York and began writing magazine articles and jokes to help pay for the tuition. This is where he began his writing career....
Words: 365 - Pages: 2
