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Role Of Upton Sinclair's Living And Dying In Packingtown

1346 Words6 Pages

Seth Ruiz
Tracy Brady
HIST151
October 19, 2015
Paper 1

Upton Sinclair’s Living and Dying in Packingtown, Chicago is a reading of a portion of his novel, The Jungle. In The Jungle, Upton Sinclair writes about a man named Jurgis Rudkus who is an immigrant from Lithuania looking for a job in Packingtown. After the death of one of his wife’s sons, Kristoforas, Jurgis applied to work for a fertilizer plant which was considered the lowest of the low places to work. He got the job and soon came to realize how terrible it was to work at the fertilizer plant.
Upton Sinclair wrote about what the plant was like in Jurgis’s and the townspeople’s mind, “All this while he was seeking for work, there was a dark shadow hanging over Jurgis; as if a savage …show more content…

The factory in which Elzbieta worked would put poisoned bread on top of the meat piles to kill the rats. Once the rats died, their bodies, the poisoned bread, the meat, and anything else that happened to be gathered along the way, would be put into sausages for future sale. (pgs. 78-79). Elzbieta was also told that sour meat and hams would be “pickled” to disguise their state. This pickle would give “any sort of meat, fresh or salted, whole or chopped, any color and any flavor and any odor they chose” (pg. 78). This way, any type of meat at any state would seem fit for consumption and, most importantly, …show more content…

Sinclair explains, “all of their sausage came out of the same bowl, but when they came to wrap it they would stamp some of it ‘special,’ and for this they would charge two cents more a pound” (pg. 79). Sinclair’s detailed exposure of the production of products being consumed by society caused a strong public reaction, and is what The Jungle is commonly known for describing. While his work may be more commonly known for exposing the meatpacking industry, Sinclair also successfully exposed the horrific working conditions and their effects. His purpose was to improve working conditions and expose the immorality and indecency of industry and capitalism. Sinclair easily convinced society of this motive through gruesome detail of the Rudkus’ experiences. His success is evident due to the The Jungle’s vast recognition, and the regulations and policies that

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