Prosperity In Upton Sinclair's The Jungle

Throughout a man’s life, he is usually told that determination and passion inevitably lead to success, that he will get rewarded for what he puts into his work. But under some circumstances man is not able to flourish no matter the amount he sacrifices to his demanding society. Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle recognizes this conflict and addresses the outcome of it. Through this novel, the author applies numerous techniques to analyze man’s capability of prosperity when the odds seem to be against him. In The Jungle, Upton Sinclair utilizes syntax, imagery, and figurative language to prove that hard work and desire can result in the lack of potential for success through the infinite struggles endured by foreigners with strong ambition.

Upton Sinclair’s application of syntax highlights that even though individuals have strong determination, they may have been set up to fail by society. The author’s use of rhetorical questions emphasize how foreigners’

When the dangers of America are first revealed to Jurgis, he describes, “How could they find out that their tea and coffee, their sugar and flour, had been doctored; that their canned peas had been colored with copper salt, and their fruit jams with aniline dye? And even if they had known it, what good would it have done them…?” (Sinclair 63). Louise Willcox, when summarizing The Jungle in her article “The Content of the Modern Novel,” claims, “The wretched Lithuanian peasants, sacrificed to the political and commercial corruption of the great city of Chicago, never quite live; they, too, are names used to point a moral and adorn a tale” (Willcox 926). By asking a rhetorical question to express the sincere confusion and hopelessness felt by the strangers of the New World, Sinclair emphasizes that attaining everyday necessities is an extreme obstacle for those who have no sense of the life around them. The author