Upton Sinclair's The Jungle Analysis

The Cruel Conditions of A Jungle Upton Sinclair’s novel The Jungle, introduces Jurgis Rudkus, a Lithuanian immigrant who enters America with his wife Ona. Jurgis is a strong individual who is eager to learn more about the American dream, but the miserable working and living conditions in Packingtown starts to make an impact in his life that will cause him to struggle in supporting his family. Firstly, this story takes place in the twentieth century, and depicts a Lithuanian family who decides to move to Chicago trying to find a better life.

A Response to the Jungle The Jungle by Upton Sinclair is a novel about what Sinclair observed when he took a trip to Chicago’s “Packingtown” area in 1904. The book is best known for illustrating the filthy production of meat using unnatural substances and unfavorable parts of animals. Sinclair also described the atrocious conditions that immigrant workers lived and worked in, often resulting in bodily injury and even death.

Throughout the novel The Jungle by Upton Sinclair, many symbols are used to portray ideas. The most prominent symbol in the book simply put is the 'animals. ' Upton Sinclair uses the relation of animals and their coherent descriptions, however vivid, to highlight and add on to his purpose of exposing the capitalistic exploitation of immigrants. Sinclair continually alludes to particular characters and groups of ethnicities through his animalistic descriptions. In direct relation to Social Darwinism, the immigrants are the prey, and the capitalistic elite is predators.

The Jungle by Upton Sinclair follows the main character Jurgis Rudkus who is an immigrant from Lithuania. Jurgis immigrated to the United States and made his way to Chicago in order to follow the path of a legendary hometown name, Jokubas, who supposedly made a lot of money in the states. Upon reaching the United States and arriving in Chicago they realized it would be much harder to establish an income in a city they weren’t familiar with. Their luck changed when they happened upon the infamous Jokubas and found out he ran a local delicatessen in the stockyards in Chicago. Jokubas helped them find a place to sleep for the night in a boarding house while they used those first days to look for work in order to move to a nicer place of living.

“With one member trimming beef in a cannery, and another working in a sausage factory, the family had a first-hand knowledge of the great Packingtown swindles” (par.1). This statement from Upton Sinclair’s book The Jungle, introduces trust from a family because of their own personal knowledge . The Jungle, features an immigrant family trying to survive in 1900’s Chicago meat packing district. In the story, Sinclair’s goal is to expose the miserable life of immigrants who work in factories.

The book The Jungle by Upton Sinclair is a good nonfictional read for those who don’t know much about immigration and discrimination. Sinclair uses the characters Jurgis and Ona that move to a the center of Chicago 's meat packing industry to demonstrate the cruel treatment that was given to immigrants from American’s. The theme of The Jungle is to show the evil of capitalism in the world at that time. Jurgis’s family was treated unfairly under the law for being immigrants. Sinclair tries to portray all the ugly sides to capitalism in this book by showing how it is effecting Jurgis’s family.

He ultimately becomes a criminal with an old friend from prison. He however gets back up on his feet and gets a job at a meatpacking plant, and makes a steady life for himself. Of course that doesn’t last long though, he relapses once he see’s Ona’s boss again. He attacks him again and he end up paying all his saved up money to bail himself out of jail. He goes to a conference where there is this speaker who motivates him to get involved in the society, and he does just that.

The influence of Upton Sinclair upon our world cannot thoroughly be measured in just a few short paragraphs or even one study. Sinclair 's work for which he was most famous, The Jungle, written in 1906, was just one of many examples of one person 's ability to change the world they live in. While the topic of The Jungle was bringing to light the horrible working conditions associated with the meat industry, the work accomplished so much more. Of course people were enraged when they found out they were probably eating rat meat along with their favorite meats but they also began to see how much hardship immigrants were going through just to try and make a living in the country at the time. Sinclair didn 't just interview people to get the

In “ The Jungle”, the author Upton Sinclair states that “ I aimed at the public's heart and by accident I hit it in the stomach”. This means that Sinclair wanted to muckrake the Meat Packing Industry to seek attention for the workers, but instead food became a bigger concern. The characters Jurgis, Ona, and Marija with fellow family members are Lithuanian immigrants who came to PackingTown in hope for a better future, however they came to realize that the whole town is run by capitalist. Although Sinclair intentionally uses metaphors and similes to depict the characters struggle in the horrible living and working conditions in Packingtown, his purpose is undermined and overlooked by his use of realism to depict the food process.

The progressive era was a time in american history when there was change in the american way of life. Before the progressive era people would die because of mal- sanitation, children would be working in factories and where getting hurt. Meat packing was done inadequately. Muckrakers brought about positive change by exposing the ill fated conditions of child labor, and the sheer filth of the meat packing industry, through literature.

Jeannette was scared and did not understand the concept of this and she started loosing trust in her father. Also the kids are starting to starve and they have to search for food in the trashcans of the schools. Since money is low, their mother got a teaching job at the school for extra money.

Sixth Grader Rob Horton is socially awkward, in the first chapter he explains that he stuffs all of his feelings into an imaginary suitcase and closes it. In addition to Rob being socially inept, Rob also has a rash on his legs that he constantly gets teased about. At school Rob’s principal thinks that Rob’s rash is contagious, so he sends Rob home. Rob and his father live at the Kentucky Star Motel in Lister, Florida. Rob is an outsider and doesn’t have any friends, until he meets the new girl Sistine.

Aremis Slake, a young boy got tired of living above the ground world for the fear of bullies that beats him all the time and no one to love or care for him. So he decided to live in an underground hideout in the New York City subway tunnel to escape from his bullies. While in his hideout, his source of livelihood was from reselling old newspapers, he collects from the train, scavenging, and a cleaning job. Suddenly Slake’s hiding place was destroyed by a train accident which devastated him. He fell sick and was taken to the hospital where he enjoyed the warmth and good food for a while.

The workers were a prime source of information for Upton, who questioned them about where they got some of their meat and they said it came from the rejections across the Atlantic in Europe. (Conditions in Meatpacking Plants; Web). The sausage for instance, would be white from the mold that had accumulated from the prolonged exposure on the journey from Europe. The trip would also bring many unwanted pests such as rats.

Uptown Sinclair’s book The Jungle was originally written to expose the working conditions within the meat packing industry. Sinclair shocked millions as he bore what it was really like behind the scenes. Employees worked with contaminated and rotting meat, which was not a health violation at the time. This eventually led to new food and federal safety laws. Most of the labor force was an immigrant, who moved to the United States with hopes of the “American Dream.”