American Dream In The Jungle

In conclusion, the novel The Jungle written by Upton Sinclair was based on the lives of immigrants living in Chicago trying to create a new life for themselves all while trying to survive in the harsh working and living conditions. The title represents what live was really like and that like in a jungle, you had to fight for survival. Sinclair described what life was like then and what was going on in the meat packing industries by using examples of corruption and poverty that Jurgis and his family

Upton Sinclair is recognized today as one of the most influential writers during the birth and largest period of industrialization in America: The Industrial Revolution. He is known most by his incredible, life-changing novel, The Jungle, which was written and published in 1906. The book was written to explain the amount of power and control that big businesses had during this era over the average workingman. “The novel’s story of the destruction of an immigrant Lithuanian family by the forces of corporate greed and poverty is a tale of horror almost beyond tragedy”(1110). Throughout the novel, Sinclair shows a series of unfortunate events that the Lithuanian family encounters once they move to America in hope of finding a life of living the “American Dream.”

The United States experienced an influx of immigrants between the 1890’s to the 1920’s. Immigrants entered the United States from Eastern Europe and Southern Europe. From these demographic shifts we can also see that there were changed in the United States attitudes towards recent immigrants. These attitudes are grounded in racialized notions of foreign peoples and African Americans. Nativist notions are set in ideas of whiteness and different factors make Eastern Europe and Southern Europe immigrants not quite white.

In Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, Jurgis and his family attempt to survive in a malicious society. In this jungle of a town, rotten meat is being packaged in order to save money. Throughout the novel, the immigrants are faced with greedy capitalists who take advantage of the family’s ignorance and naivety in order to make money. The symbols of corruption, a jungle-like setting, and the tension between family and a work-based lifestyle transparently contribute to the unifying theme of anti-capitalism. In other words, this book is not art; this book is propaganda.

Due to this, the children might be exposed to many different serious health problems. Several lawsuits have been in place because of this situation. The Jungle, written by Upton Sinclair, is about Jurgis Rudkus and his family, who are immigrants that move to Chicago from Lithuania in search of a better life. Once they get to America, they realize that life here was not all that it was cracked up to be. They get mistreated, and their daily lives become very challenging.

Upton Sinclair reflects the reality of the people during the late 1800’s in his novel The Jungle. In his novel, Sinclair wants to promote Socialism by showing how people lived in the meatpacking plant and under a corrupt government. The inhuman working conditions, combined with the lack of hygiene and a corrupt government, made trying to make a living a total hardships for the low class and the immigrants. The Jungle takes place in Packingtown, Chicago, where the employees work under horrible conditions.

Over the years, immigrants have influenced many aspects of American society and has had a vital role in shaping the United States to what it is today. According to the US Census Bureau, an agency of the U.S. Federal Statistical System responsible for producing data about the American people and economy, “non-Hispanic white population in the U.S. declined from 85 percent in 1965 to 62.2 percent in 2014, and the forecast is for the percentage of non-Hispanic whites to fall to 43.6 percent in 2060” (qtd. in Walsh). Despite the rise of immigrants and the profound impact they have had on society, many immigrants face perpetual discrimination; this idea has appeared many times throughout Barbara Kingsolver’s novel The Bean Trees. Taking place during the 1970s, the main character, Taylor, moves from Kentucky to Arizona; along the way, she meets Esperanza and Estevan, illegal immigrants from Guatemala. As she gets to know them better, she notices they are forced to live a monotonous, arduous life which implies that immigrants face prejudice from Americans who claim to be accepting.

The ability for people to look at a situation from a different perspective is vital in today’s globalized society. Diversity is the most important, core attribute we each share that gives us the ability to assess new situations through our diverse backgrounds and upbringings. Unlike Patrick J. Buchanan’s argument in his essay titled “Deconstructing America,” diversity is a necessity in America’s culture as opposed to the burden it is described as. Conversely, Fredrickson 's essay titled “Models of American Ethnic Relations: A Historical Perspective,” illustrated a more precise version of American history that disproves Buchanan’s ethnocentric ideologies. Buchanan speaks of diversity on a narrow, one-way street.

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

Originally the American Dream was simply the idea that hard work was all that is required to obtain a decent life. As simple as this sounds, this idea was revolutionary for its time. The roots of the American Dream can be traced all the way back to the Declaration of Independence: “All men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” This gave the common man a chance to improve his status in the world. In the old world, there was no class mobility of any kind.

The 19th century was the era of the Gilded Age, where the economy was booming, bringing great changes that affected the lives of workers and entrepreneurs. During this period, there was a large influx of immigrants that were coming to America to look for job opportunities. The migration of immigrants proved useful as a source for cheap labor, allowing an even higher rise in the U.S. economy. While American industrialization may have benefited the upper class of the American society, the effects were opposite to the workers of the lower classes. This problem was especially worse for immigrant workers as their belief in the so-called American dream has been worn down due to the misery they had to endure. Immigrant workers were limited of their freedom and constantly exploited due to the fact that they were working in hazardous working conditions, were living in deplorable conditions, and were being harassed under the intimidating power of corrupt politicians.

Impossible Dreams The meaning of the American Dream can be seen as ”A uniquely American vision of the country consisting of three central ideas. The American dream consists of a belief in America as the new Eden- a land of beauty, bounty, and unlimited promise; a feeling of optimism, created by ever expanding opportunity; and a confidence in the triumph of the individual.” Using this definition of the so called “American dream”, it seems to be a great representation of it at first, until you realize it includes everyone as the individual. From the beginning of the Civil war to the end of the War to End All Wars, the American Dream wasn’t possible due to the treatment of the Native Americans, the inequality between women and men, and the false promises given to the immigrants coming to our country in their time of need.

A Time for Struggle and Change Upton Sinclair’s book, The Jungle, depicts the struggles of Lithuanian immigrants as they worked and lived in Chicago’s Packingtown at the beginning of the Twentieth Century. The United States experienced an enormous social and political transformation; furthermore, the economy, factories, and transportation industry grew faster than anyone had ever seen. Immigrants and migrants were attracted to city life for its promise of employment and their chance at the American Dream. The poor working class had little to no rights, and they grappled with unfair business practices, unsafe working conditions, racism, Social Darwinism, class segregation, xenophobia, political corruption, strikes, starvation, poor housing,

Immigrants faced harsh living and working conditions, racial strife, poverty, as well as social class issues. Upton Sinclair’s novel The Jungle explores many of these hardships immigrants had to face through the lives of Lithuanian Immigrants. Throughout his novel, Sinclair focuses on poverty and thoughts of what America was supposed to be like to portray hardships immigrants faced when coming to America.

The most significant event of the twentieth-century emergencies the societies classes diversity and struggle. The novel, The Jungle penned by Upton Sinclair attempts to display the lower class economic and social challenges by exemplifying the difficulties of a Lithuanian immigrant family. The predicament situation of Jurgis and his family reveals the dark side of the capitalism, therefore, additionally, it revealed the bourgeoisie class dominance and exploitation of the proletariat class. Throughout the novel, Jurgis and his family encounter varied difficulties from being unable to find a proper job to several deaths followed one after another due to their harsh living conditions which result in the family separation nevertheless the children’s