The Wretched Lives of Workers America during the early 20th Century was a time full of selfish capitalists and the poverty-stricken workers who paid for their success. The Jungle, by Upton Sinclair, captures this perfectly with the portrayal of Jurgis Rudkus. Jurgis is a newly immigrated person to the United States with his family when they realize they need jobs and a place to live. Throughout the book, Jurgis finds new jobs such as in meat factories and fertilizer plants but loses them as well. The book is full of tragedies ranging from Jurgis losing his job to the death of his wife and child. In The Jungle, Upton Sinclair successfully shows how the working class was affected by capitalistic America, by the lack of safety standards, and …show more content…
This causes Jurgis to spend a lot of their money on alcohol in order to allow himself to “see clearly” again. Sinclair shows how the poor reacted to the neglect, by making Jurgis become a drunk who abused his family 's money. From the article “Realism and Revolution”, Walter Rideout remarks, “When illness destroys Jurgis 's great strength, he realizes that he has become a physical cast-off, one of the waste products of the plant, and must take the vilest job of all in the packing company 's fertilizer plant.” (Rideout) As Jurgis lives through his life of poverty, he becomes weaker and weaker until he becomes worthless to employers. This causes Jurgis to have little self-worth, or as Rideout puts, Jurgis believes he is “one of the waste products of the plant” (Rideout). Jurgis was not the only character to be belittled, Rideout also puts, “After their pathetically happy marriage, the descent of Jurgis and Ona into the social pit is steady. They are spiritually and, in the case of Ona, physically slaughtered, more slowly but quite as surely as the cattle in the packing plant.” Not only Jurgis, but his wife Ona as well was mentally affected. The world that the immigrants at the time lived in was very demanding and caused many problems for
When Jurgis first came to america they thought it would be better than where they use lived but it was way worse. The last metaphor is when Marija had enough money to actually be able to put it in the bank. Later she found out the bank had ran out of money so she thought she would lose it all so she and the other people of packingtown went and withdrew all of her money. Marija was so worried she was going to lose all of her money that she sewed it into her jacket pockets, only for her to get stuck in the mud. This shows that marija valued her money more than her own life.
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 is a novel about the journey of Jurgis and his family after immigrating from Lithuanian to Packingtown, Chicago. Jurgis finds a job working in the meat-packing industry, and the family finds a house to buy. Although Jurgis did not want Ona or the children going to work, times get hard and the whole family ends up getting a job. While at work, Jurgis injures his ankle; this causes him to be out of work for a few months. To keep the family from losing their jobs, Ona sleeps with her boss, Conner.
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.
Upton Sinclair in his book “The Jungle”depicted the everyday struggles that immigrants like Jurgis had to go through really well and for the most part historically correct. To understand more about “The Jungle”, you need to understand more about Sinclair and his life. Sinclair had experienced some of the things he wrote about firsthand, once such thing was the widespread poverty epidemic. This experience of poverty gave Sinclair a first hand experience as to what others in the same situation were going though. Sinclair’s past is a difficult one because he had an alcoholic dad who wasn't well off, while on the other hand he had a mother who had wealth relative that he often visited (NYTIMES).
The Jungle, written by Upton Sinclair in 1905, exposes the unfavorable working conditions in the Chicago meatpacking industry and the difficulties faced by immigrants at the beginning of the 20th century. The story revolves around Lithuanian immigrant Jurgis Rudkus, who immigrated to America with his family in a quest for a better life. The chances that America provides thrill Jurgis and his family, but they soon come to understand that they are entangled in a dishonest and ruthless system. The book gives a comprehensive account of the hazardous and filthy circumstances present in meatpacking plants, including the use of rotting meat, rat waste, and other toxins in food preparation. The Pure Food and Drug Act and the Meat Inspection Act of
In the early 1900s, food safety was an incredibly unfamiliar and overlooked part of America’s food industry. Written by muckraker Upton Sinclair, The Jungle, was a controversial novel that depicted the harsh living and working conditions of immigrants working in the food industry. After the release of The Jungle, thousands of meat-eating Americans were horrified at what had been happening in factories. Disgusting yet accurate details presented in The Jungle were the basis for the creation of laws to stop food production from becoming so unsanitary.
The Bosses squeezed and drained the life of those men. In the book The Jungle written by Upton Sinclair he described the life of a struggling family try to work and stay alive in the filth. The working conditions in the factories were unsafe, unsanitary and people made little. The purpose of this book was for people to become socialist other than capitalist.
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
As industrial strength grew and technology advanced, labor in America changed. Machines replaced many of workers’ old duties and some skilled laborers who had been previously valued became easily replaced. Immigrants who were willing to work under poorer conditions flooded into the United States, big businesses grew, and political machines whose interests were not that of the people occupied the government. Laborers worked ten hour shifts, six-day workweeks, and started work as children. In The Jungle, by Upton Sinclair, he describes the painful and vigorous work in the meat-packing industry, saying, “The hands of these men would be criss-crossed with cuts, until you could no longer pretend to count them...
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.
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.
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 Jungle is a story that revolves around the protagonist Jurgis Rudkus and his family, the Lithuanian immigrant who came to America to lead a better life and worked at meatpacking plants of early 20th century Chicago. The story showcases the hardship that they underwent due to the harsh and bad working condition, poverty, starvation and being cheated by unjust people agents, eventually losing all their money. The Jungle provides us ways to look at the unfettered capitalism that prevailed in the early 20th century. This book also exposes the corruption, inequality, unjustness, sickness and slavery that existed in the society.
During the time period of the 1900’s, the meat packaging industry in Chicago, as Sinclair mentions in his novel, The Jungle, was a very unsanitary and extremely dangerous workplace that lacked much more than just a few safety precautions. Simple things, such as enforcing hand washing or workers’ rights were unheard of in the working environment. It is clear that Upton Sinclair was trying to expose the worker’s horrendous labor conditions in order to improve their situation, along with the introduction of socialism. Upton Sinclair, in his novel, talks about how a Lithuanian immigrant by the name of Jurgis Rudkus, and his family, travel to Chicago trying to make ends meet. However, they soon realize Chicago was not the place for that.