Literary Techniques In Upton Sinclair's The Jungle

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.

“I aimed at the public’s heart and by accident I hit in the stomach” stated the international famous Upton Sinclair, after writing his most prominent novel, The Jungle. The word jungle is constantly associated with a wild environment full of undomesticated animals, but in this authentic novel, it refers to the unethical actions practiced during the gilded age. Sinclair’s main idea was to end all the unjust activities experienced during this time by writing and using the experience of his main character. Throughout the novel, the audience can perceive themes such as capitalism and socialism, historical events and symbolism.

They were given low pay and barely had enough food to survive. This makes the American Dream nearly impossible to achieve. In this novel, many people pass away, including Ona, Jurgis’ wife. Ona dies while giving birth to her stillborn baby. Jurgis goes in and out of jail many times due to many different things.

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. Jurgis then takes a tour of the stock yards where he is first introduced to the quality of living these animals are in before slaughter. He also notices that the inspectors don’t pay close attention to the carcasses to check for

American Dream or American Nightmare? Sinclair, Upton. The Jungle. Mineola, New York.

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 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

He feels the pressure and the injustice of the system more than ever during his time in jail. Jurgis’ experience with the policemen of Packingtown supported his role as a protagonist. “On his way to his cell a burly policeman cursed him because he started down the wrong corridor [...] Jurgis did not even lift his eyes— he had lived two years and a half in Packingtown, and he knew what the police were. It was as much as a man’s very life was worth to anger them...”

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. Examples of the consequences of lack of ignorance can be found in other literary works such as Two Sheep by Janet Frame. The overwhelming absence of knowledge in combination with unrealistic hope is the cause of the frequent dilemmas they encounter, and by that definition, can be considered the antagonist of The Jungle.

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.

In the novel, Jurgis refers to the meatpacking industries, what goes in the food, and the processes to make the food. He

A muckraker is what is considered today an investigative journalist. In Sinclair’s case, he is considered a muckraker because he “wanted to investigate the meat-packing industry” in order to write about the working class, especially the immigrants working in them. As he began his investigation, however, he discovered dirty and unhealthy conditions in a workplace with unsafe standards. The applicable theme would be Culture and Society (CUL) because although he speaks about the working class and work conditions, he focuses on society as a whole. He writes “The Jungle” to describe to them the dirty, “unhealthy conditions, and general absence of meaningful safety standards in the workplace”.

Summary: The Jungle by Upton Sinclair begins with Jurgis’s and Ona’s wedding day at Chicago’s meat packing building. The beginning of the book is based on flashbacks for the couple, such as from when they meet in Lithuania to deciding to move to the United States in hopes of a better life. Not only does the newly wed couple decide to go but other family members decide to go too.

Upton Sinclair wrote a book from the early 1900’s called The Jungle. The book is centered around a family who immigrated to America. The family goes through a lot of hardships and troubles during the industrialization era. Life back then was hard for the average person. Most people did not have much money to buy food and necessities, and many lived in rural areas, mostly immigrants. Industrialization upgraded machines, but downgraded people’s health due to more pollutants getting put into the air. Along with this there were very poor working conditions that decreased people’s health. Upton Sinclair showed that industries should have safer and more sanitary working conditions before employing people to work and distributing their product, in order to decrease the amount of injuries and illnesses, in The Jungle.

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.