The Jungle Socialism

Improved Essays
The Jungle
In Sinclair’s novel The Jungle which is based of true life events of the life of people in 1906. There was a family who had moved from their home in Lithuania and mod to America. Once they were in America they got a job at a meat packing business. In the packing business there was a lot of problems. Dishonest practice came along, they did dishonest practice to survive. The books title is accurate to what life was like back then. Society classes were important back then, they would decide what you would be. The people that Jurgis meets are representative of cross-section of Chicago. The quote “I Aimed For The Public’s Heart, And… Hit It In the Stomach’ is trying to push socialism but then is interrupted by the corruption of the food industries. Practicing dishonest practices was very important back then. Dishonest practices were the way people survived. In other words, survival of the fittest. Some of the dishonest practices are the unfair working conditions. For example, in Packing Town there were no heaters and the only way you could warm up was by going to the bar. But to go into the bar you had to buy alcohol; you were not allowed to just go sit in the bar. By doing that, the meat packing business was making money and made it easier to survive because the business owned the bar as well. Jurgis starts out as a very honest man but then realizes to survive you must not be honest. He makes two trips to jail, one because he fought his wife’s boss because he raped her, and the other reason was because he got in a fight at the bar. The person who sold Jurgis his house was dishonest when he said that house was new. In reality the house was ten years old and had a bad foundation and plumbing. The title of Sinclair’s novel The Jungle is a perfect name for the book. A jungle is probably the best way to describe Chicago back then. For example, in order to survive in a jungle you must be fit for the environment you are in. That is the same for in Chicago in this time period. You must be able to handle the tough working conditions of working in a meat packing business. If you wanted to keep some of your money, you would need to learn how to deal with the harsh impact of the cold. So that you don’t have to go to the bar and buy alcohol just to warm up. You could look at it as if the owners were the predators and the workers were the prey. The animals in the jungle must fight or be able to adapt and hide from the predators trying to eat them. You can see Jurgis being treated as an animal when he is put behind bars as if he
…show more content…
Sinclair’s point of writing this novel was to try to get socialism but the people start worrying more about the health problems and forgets about socialism. Something came from this book and that is the Health Act. The Health Act was where the government came in and started to check everything and started to be involved in more things. So when it says “I Aimed For The Public’s Heart’ I means that they were trying to get socialism across. The second half means that instead of getting socialism across they got people’s attention by the Health act. This is how many of the food industries became more well known. They would have cleaner areas and would treat their workers well. Sinclair’s novel The Jungle is mainly about how life was back in 1906. You could see that life back in this time was not all that easy. You had to learn that not everything is as easy as counting to one, two, three. You have to actually work for things you want. Also, social class had a big effect on your life as well. Depending on which class you were in depended on what your life was going to be like. If you were more on the poor side you would have to deal with basic stuff. If you were more on the richer side you could basically do whatever you

Related Documents

  • Decent Essays

    Sinclair uses a series of grotesque imagery in order to expose the corruption that was going on in the meat packing industries. By doing this he hoped that people would start taking precautions and caring about the products their foods contained. This was aimed more towards the middle class people as they were the only ones who could really do something. The lower class were too poor and the higher class only made decisions that were in their best interest.…

    • 348 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Upton Sinclair’s book, The Jungle published in 1906 marked a very critical moment is U.S. history. The book became an instant best seller and immediately brought change due to public outcry. It was an important turning point in United States history because it exposed the disgusting and careless way the meat was handled in meat companies around the United States. This book led to the result of two major legislations being passed. The Jungle not only affected the United States domestically but also internationally.…

    • 482 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The Jungle, by Upton Sinclair, was written in 1906, about an immigrant family from Lithuania that came to the United States searching for a better life. Jurgis and Ona, a young couple who were desperate to find their way in America by living the American Dream. Jurgis was eager to work and earn money in order to gain prosperity for his family. However, as the story unfolds, we quickly see that the dream he was searching for seemed almost untouchable. The working conditions were hard, dangerous and filthy.…

    • 108 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Sinclair used his novel, The Jungle, to expose the corruption of greedy big businessmen who made their fortunes at the expense of the desperate working class. Sinclair’s writing was so influential and persuasive that it caused the Pure Food and Drug Act and the Meat Inspection Act to be passed in the United States Congress. Although the intent of Sinclair’s novel was to expose the exploitation of the working class and promote socialism as a solution, it gained notoriety for exclusively exposing the unsanitary conditions of food processors. Sinclair famously said of the public reaction "I aimed at the public's heart, and by accident I hit it in the stomach."(Andrew…

    • 1177 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    However, the response to Sinclair’s novel was immediate. Through its vivid and lurid depiction of the meat industry, The Jungle helped unaware readers recognize that reform was certainly needed. Soon after its publication, the White House began getting “100 letters a day demanding a Federal cleanup of the meat industry,” said Alden Whitman. In response, Roosevelt told Sinclair he was sending two investigators, Charles Neill and James Reynolds, to inspect Chicago’s factories. Even though the meat places were aware they were coming, the inspectors discovered that conditions were even worse than depicted in The Jungle.…

    • 760 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    “I aimed at the public's heart, and by accident I hit it in the stomach.” Said Upton Sinclair. This specific quote was referring to Sinclair’s book The Jungle. The Jungle was Sinclair’s most well-known, controversial, misunderstood, yet successful attempt to identify and expose social injustices and promote his activist beliefs on socialism. Upton Beall Sinclair, Jr’s Life began on September 20, 1878, in Baltimore.…

    • 880 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    When Jurgis discovers socialist politics he realizes that his voice would be more powerful. Sinclair illustrated that socialism could resolve the end of the harmful working condition for the workers. All the problems that used to exist are no more, now that Jurgis has found his place in the righteous system of socialism. Socialism will benefit everyone; Sinclair was making it known to the readers that families were falling apart due to the working conditions in a place that they came to find freedom was a place they felt like a prisoner.…

    • 553 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Rather than creating a fictitious setting Sinclair valued letting the people know what was happening in their own country’s meat packing industry. This novel is still remains a very applicable primary source that shows the true industry that made Chicago famous, “Any student of American history and culture owes it to himself to read The Jungle in order to understand more clearly the impulse behind the labor movement, the drive for regulatory agencies, and the need for social conscience on the part of all citizens”(Woodress). Sinclair wanted to expose the…

    • 1806 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Have you ever wondered about how people back then worked? Back then so many things were very different. It wasn’t easy as it is now. People that worked in the 1800 in Hawaii can show that. Plantation life in Hawaii in the 1800s was not easy.…

    • 440 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The four major ideals of Communism, for future reference are as follows: collective ownership of production, centralized government, censorship, and the distribution of goods. He then becomes rebellious to the society and reads books from houses that have broken the strict equality laws. Mildred, Guy’s wife, disagrees with breaking the rules and leaves him soon after he gets involved with it. She is a conformist rather than a revolutionary, as many are in the novel solely because conformity is a more stable life style than risky and rigorous revolutions. Guy Montag, soon after realizing his actions, in which he attempted to reduce turmoil and individualism (which are in vain for individualism is in infinite supply), caused a mass amount of destruction, but overall did not reduce the amount of disorder in the unbalanced equation of life.…

    • 970 Words
    • 4 Pages
    • 1 Works Cited
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The Jungle by Upton Sinclair is a great book that gives the reader and insight of how life was for people with low income, foreigners and also how females and men were looked upon as. Sinclair signals how people that come from poor class are treated and also taken advantage of. Racism is also shown to foreigners, they are looked at as if they were animals. Sexism is shown when women are taken advantage and unable to say or do anything for their own safety.…

    • 1741 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Throughout the excerpt from the book, “The Greening of America” written by Charles A. Reich, he interprets his theory, emphasizes the differences, and explicates what Consciousness I, II, and III are per his model. Reich starts off by stating that the American Dream is “—the dream shared by the colonists and the immigrants…. —a dream premised on human dignity, a dignity that made each man an equal being in a spiritual sense, and envisioned a community based upon individual dignity”. This feeds from the fact that people came to America to be granted freedom. They believed to not be held up by other countries rules, customs, and traditions.…

    • 1192 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In The Jungle, Upton Sinclair recounted one immigrant family’s failure to live the American Dream. Jurgis Rudkus and Ona Lukoszaite immigrated to Chicago from Lithuania in hopes of beginning a new and better life together. They “had dreamed of freedom; of a chance to look about them and learn something; to be decent and clean, to see their child grow up to be strong” (Sinclair 143). In actuality, the novel highlighted the difficulties they faced living in filth while struggling to rise up in a grueling America. Upton Sinclair, a muckraker, wrote the The Jungle to highlight the poor working conditions in the country’s meatpacking industry.…

    • 1121 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The American socio-political climate is an ever changing landscape in which different cultures compete for normality in a state system founded upon the equality of all men. Although these truths are held to be self-evident in the Preamble to the Declaration of Independence, certain groups continually find themselves disenfranchised by changing laws and technology which deem their way of life obsolete and are forced to conform or perish. Nowhere is system of conformity anthologized than in Jack Kerouac’s 1960 Essay, “The Vanishing American Hobo” when the author confesses, “I myself was a hobo but I had to give it up around 1956 because of increasing television stories about the abominableness of strangers with packs passing through by themselves…

    • 2148 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Sweat Shop Socialism

    • 188 Words
    • 1 Pages

    "Socialism and freedom are oil and water, they can't coexist" is not necessarily true. " the redistribution of money, resources, etc, from some individuals to others is theft" can be true, but also is not necessarily true. " centrally run programs have always failed to distribute goods efficiently or cheaply. The market has proven to do this better by a large margin 100% of the time ... Look at every industry the federal government is heavily involved in and compare it to industries they aren't involved in."…

    • 188 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays