The Role Of The American Dream In Upton Sinclair's The Jungle

“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. To accomplish this goal, the author conveys rhetorical strategies such as diction, pathos, and metaphors.

When Upton Sinclair wrote the Jungle, a book about the terrible environment of the meat-packing factories in Chicago, he hoped to motivate reform in immigrant working conditions and promote socialism. Instead, what shocked readers the most was the sordid surroundings in which their future meals were prepared. Sinclair 's audience saw these conditions as a threat to themselves, and that energized reform in the meat-packing industry. What scared audiences the most was how real this threat was to their lives. As can be witnessed in the results of Sinclair 's crusade, the most effective propaganda is that which rouses the visceral survival instinct. Donald Trump, a notorious real estate mogul, is running for president on a platform that started

In The Jungle, Upton Sinclair presents a wide range of corruption involving, blacklisting, political scams, and the mishandling of meat. During the early 20th century, immigrants in America were exposed to many forms of corruption. The Jungle is based in Packingtown, Chicago, a very crowded city. Here, lived an excess amount of very poor immigrants. As they were immigrants, they often did not realize they were taken advantage of until it was too late--if ever. This was because many of them did not speak English, did not understand our government laws, or rules of their community, or were extremely poor, making them desperate for things like low-paying jobs.

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.

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.

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.

The novel The Jungle written by Upton Sinclair is a fictional story based during the twentieth century on the lives of immigrants living in Chicago and the harsh conditions they went through. I think that Sinclair named his book the jungle because Packingtown, the meat-packing district of Chicago, mimicked a jungle. The conditions were terrible, the labor and work those workers were put through were extremely harsh. Everyone, including Jurgis Rudkus and his family, had to fight for their survival everyday. It was the survival of the fittest and if you let your guard down or didn’t do your job right, you would be replaced.

Big corporations and businesses have been thriving in America since the late nineteenth century. The definition of the term “Big business” is “an economic group consisting of large profit-making corporations especially with regard to their influence on social or political policy”(“Big Business”).

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.

Families that are poor or have a low income are more likely to commit crimes for the purpose of their own needs to survive. “It is a fact that neighborhoods where the poor are concentrated are more prone to high crime rates, and poor residents are the most common victims of crimes” (1). The best explanation for this is that poorer people have the same needs as a regular middle-class citizen. The poor citizens need certain things to help him or her live a healthy life, such as healthcare, food stamps, and more employment options. One may argue that healthcare is too expensive and that food stamps have been taken away from many people. It is also extremely difficult to get a well-paying job in order to pay for housing, healthcare, and food. The lack of healthcare, food stamps, and well-paying jobs can result in people turning towards crime because of issues such as mental health, physical health, and employment options.

The 19th century was the era of the Gilded Age, where the economy was booming, bringing great changes that affected the lives of workers and entrepreneurs. During this period, there was a large influx of immigrants that were coming to America to look for job opportunities. The migration of immigrants proved useful as a source for cheap labor, allowing an even higher rise in the U.S. economy. While American industrialization may have benefited the upper class of the American society, the effects were opposite to the workers of the lower classes. This problem was especially worse for immigrant workers as their belief in the so-called American dream has been worn down due to the misery they had to endure. Immigrant workers were limited of their freedom and constantly exploited due to the fact that they were working in hazardous working conditions, were living in deplorable conditions, and were being harassed under the intimidating power of corrupt politicians.

The American dream is to start your life with little to no money and work your way into making a liveable salary. The American dream is often thought of by immigrants, many immigrants move to the U.S. thinking they follow the American dream. In the book The Great Gatsby, James Gatsby the mysterious wealthy character who dropped out of college and started his life as a young man. Gatsby could be compared to the immigrants in the thought of the American dream. Back in the early 1900’s the American dream was known around the world and thought of as easily capable; Nowadays the “American Dream” is not as reachable, the economy has changed and there have been shortages in jobs.

The Oxford Dictionary defines the “American dream” as, “the ideal that every US citizen should have an equal opportunity to achieve success and prosperity through hard work, determination, and initiative”. The American dream hasn’t evolved since the coining of the idea; the dream is still to have a steady job, a nice house, and a pleasant family. However, that dream does not appeal to everyone. Jon Krakauer’s Into the Wild looks back upon the incredible journey of Chris McCandless. The story of a well-to-do young man who after graduating from a high-ranking university, donates all of savings to charity, burns the cash in his wallet, abandons all of his material possessions, and cuts ties with all of his family and friends to embark on his own personal odesseye in nature to carry out an adventure living in

“The same endless vista of ugly and dirty little wooden buildings. Here and there would be a bridge crossing a filthy creek.” This was Upton Sinclair’s description of the city of Chicago in the early 20th century in his book The Jungle, and it was not flattering. The things that went on inside the city was even uglier, and it was done by one corporate, capitalism. Capitalism became a major problem in America as it bred horrible working and living conditions for the working class, and there was many reasons for why this happened (i.e. greed). Capitalism bred corruption in both police department, government and the voting process, and bred ethnic tensions that had a major effect on class relations during that period. The unions and socialist movements that came out during this time period showed to the world how problematic capitalism is, and blossomed in the 20th century as a savior of the working class. Upton Sinclair conveyed to the world the problems of capitalism in a progressive reform impulse way, and was extremely successful in showing to the world how problematic capitalism was.

Upton Sinclair 's, The Jungle, is set in the early 1900’s and tells the story of Jurgis, the main character, who has much trouble in succeeding the tasks he promises to fulfill for his family. Jurgis Rudkus is married to Ona. The two have two late children and two handicapped children. When he, his wife, and their children move to Packingtown, Chicago from Lithuania, Jurgis finds a job to provide for them. Of course, having one person only working to pay the bills is difficult especially with the little pay. Every time Ona suggests her working, Jurgis says to her, “Leave it to me-I will earn more money. I will work harder.” (Sinclair 22) He believes that the man should be the one to work for the family so he repeatedly states he would “try harder”. However, he never does since yet another problem arises. Jurgis is a perfect example to show that no matter how much some people try to fix their problems, there are times when it is not possible.