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Upton Sinclair's 'A Response To The Jungle'

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A Response to the Jungle The Jungle by Upton Sinclair is a novel about what Sinclair observed when he took a trip to Chicago’s “Packingtown” area in 1904. The book is best known for illustrating the filthy production of meat using unnatural substances and unfavorable parts of animals. Sinclair also described the atrocious conditions that immigrant workers lived and worked in, often resulting in bodily injury and even death. The excerpt begins by describing the circumstances outside factories that immigrants lived with. Danger was all around, the milk they bought was water and tainted with formaldehyde, their jams made with toxic dyes, and their houses having cesspools under them. The immigrants had no way of knowing about their doctored …show more content…

I thought this would be an uninteresting excerpt and when I finished it, I was fascinated. The language that Sinclaire uses paints a perfect picture of the environment of the time. I can see the neighborhood, the factory, the people, and even the meat and other products they produced. I think that having the ability to picture this definitely makes it more impactful on me. Furthermore, another thing I liked about Sinclair 's writing is how he used exclamation points and question marks. He used them to add emphasis to the words he 's saying and really make the reader think. I think this is particularly notable when he asks “And even if they had known it, what good would it have done them, since there was no place within miles of them were any other sort was to had?” and exclaims about people being made into lard. I think this stands out to me because of other works I’ve read that use the same technique. Additionally, this excerpt definitely got me thinking about the food we eat today. These people had no idea they were eating disgusting, rancid, altered meat, so I wonder is this happening today without the people’s knowledge? If not in the US because of our laws, then what about countries without these restrictions? I’m also concerned about the things the US does allow to be put in food such as nitrates, preservatives, and GMO’s. I think these concern me because I want to know what’s going into my body, and how it’s gonna affect my

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