The Jungle includes different types of styles that are ordinarily not used in formal writings. The author expresses his own political thoughts and beliefs. He doesn't really show the development of the characters and is very inconsistent with his tone of voice. Another unique difference was how the role of the narrator began to fade away towards the end of the book, which really took away from the quality of formal writing. This fiction novel really hurts Sinclair’s reputation as a professional and serious novel writer. However, Sinclair’s perception of the Jungle causes a positive look and impact on literary advancements in today's writings.
The term Muckraker was used in the progressive Era to characterize American journalist who attacked
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They are living a hard life with hard working conditions and and poverty. They are also struggling with how dangerous and corrupt the political government. The book goes along and follows Jurgis and his struggles as he transitions into a new political economy. Jurgis and Ona came from the countryside of Lithuania. They left because they weren't allowed to get married there and because Ona’s father dies, and they didn't have much money. Jurgis’s brother tells them he has a friend in Chicago who made a lot of money and he influence them to …show more content…
The author gets the reader into the book by revealing terrible things that are taking place in one of Chicago’s meatpacking industry’s. Jurgis, the protagonist, learns about the better way of life and he comes to America in search of a better way of living. The Author really does a great job of “hooking” the reader. He talks and describes the meat industry and life of an immigrant coming to the states. The purpose of the book was hard to understand at times, but soon I figured that the purpose was to inform the reader about the social reform. Sinclair really portrayed this book as more of a history story then a entertaining novel which made the book less exciting and more
This book takes place in an immigrant enclave in Chicago, known as Packingtown during the turn of the century. While this book is fictional, it looks at the difficult living conditions immigrants faced coming to America and finding work during the beginning of the 20th century. This book looks at the exploitation of these workers from con men preying on their naiveté to their own employers providing workers with very dangerous and appalling working conditions with poor compensation in return. This book begins with the wedding of Jurgis Rudks and fiancé Ona Lukoszaite. The wedding feast is held in a hall at Packingtown.
After all of those ups and downs and ins and outs, the book ends on a “happy” note (well at least for the main character). Marija is now a prostitute and will probably never better her life, but Jurgis and Test Elzbieta have joined a socialist party and begin to “reform” their lives. I am beginning to feel that Sinclair was hiding a message throughout the book the entire time: Socialism is the Savior of Immigrant Workers, and it took him 31 Chapters to do it. FINAL THOUGHT:
At the end of the book, Jurgis wanders into a social rally, completely distraught, due to his emotional, and most likely physical, pain. The speech that he hears at this rally inspires him, leading him to join said party, to which it helps him get a job, allowing him to find one of his relatives, Teta
Even though many find this book and its ideas to be controversial, it should be taught in secondary schools for its historical value and its example of how a book brought about social change. Sinclair began publishing
Jurgis and his family went to purchase a house but found out they will be paying monthly, which resembles more of a rent based system than a purchase. On top of moving into a new house they have learned that the payments also have an interest fee on top of their monthly amount. One of their neighbors decides to share a story with them about other families that have not been able to pay off the house and have been evicted which highlights the corrupt nature of the landlords. It also points out that the families before them have had to rely on a key wage earner for the monthly payments and when they are overcome by disease or injury from the stockyards they lose the house. Unfortunately, Jurgis’s family is effected by the diseases from the stockyards as well but they do not have time to take off work in order
He vividly described the unkempt messiness of the meat packing factories, going as far as to say that men “made a practice of washing them in the water that was to be ladled into the sausage.” The colorful descriptions of the factories left a heavy impact on America as a whole, as seen in the passing of the Meat Inspection Act. One of the major flaws of this book was the seemingly forced ending. Rudkus goes through years of toil and hardship, and supposedly finds the light at the end of the road in socialism. It was obvious to me when reading that Sinclair was a strong proponent of socialism, and I was disenchanted with the whole story after the
The Jungle can teach us to be more aware of our surroundings and what is going on in our lifetime. It can also make us appreciate our lives better as we don’t have to suffer what the poor immigrants had to suffer. The book was written in the time period it deals with, the early
Jurgis gains a new perspective of everything around him and everything that has happened. The main character Jurgis Rudkus is an immigrant coming to America. He searches for a job to provide money for his wife and parents. In the article Schema Criticism by Mark Bracher, he emphasizes that, “Jurgis is the prototypical image of autonomy. He is powerful, exuberant, striking figure who towers above the other workers” (32).
In the novel, Jurgis refers to the meatpacking industries, what goes in the food, and the processes to make the food. He
There are many other traps around America that deceive the immigrants because their weakness of not knowing English and the desire of getting a great life in America which lead them unpreparedly get fooled by the businessmen. These traps prevented the immigrants from leaving America, because of the significant amount of debt that they have to pay each month, which forced them to keep working and become the slave of this capitalistic society in America. Unfortunately, even they work very hard, in most of the time they will not get anything in return, such that Jurgis’s family cannot even keep the house at the of the book and many of family members’ health destroyed by the harsh working conditions in the
In chapter 14 the family by now knows the secrets of the meat packing industry. They cant speak out because they are afraid to lose their job. Jurgis starts to drink heavily now but it isn’t going to help. Jurgis’s son is going through some tough times just turning one year he is already suffering illnesses. Moving through the chapter I find out Ona is pregnant again; which is strange because they just had one about a year ago.
When Upton Sinclair, a progressive era muckraker, wrote The Jungle in 1906, he was attempting to bring knowledge of the horrific conditions in Packingtown to the average citizen. His revelations on the terrors of Packingtown helped to slowly improve the lives of the immigrants. Sinclair’s pursuit of knowledge relates to the slowly growing knowledge of the characters in The Jungle. Throughout the story the characters find themselves in many tragic circumstances that could have been more easily avoided if they had been more aware of their surroundings. The immigrants are full of a false hope for success that disillusions the reality of their life.
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.
Jurgis started off firmly believing on his American dream of having a better life where he would work hard and earn lots of money. He took up work in a meatpacking plant where he had to sweep blood and body parts of slaughtered cattle. The job was unsafe and the conditions were bitter but he continued working a he was happy to get a job so fast. In the packinghouses the condition were deplorable, every part of the animal was used to make profit. Even spoiled meat was marked as good and sold out to public.
They take you on a journey full of dream-crushing brutality and deception of what seems to be the ideal place to work and built a life. They settle near the stockyards and meatpacking district, where Jurgis finds his first job at Brown’s slaughterhouse. Jurgis, thinking the U.S. offered more freedom, finds that the working conditions there are very