The Role Of Uncle Al In Sara Gruen's Water For Elephants

What are the most horrible things your boss could even do? Most people imagine long workdays, cruel comments, or being paid unfairly, but in Sara Gruen’s novel Water for Elephants Uncle Al makes today’s worst bosses seem like saints. Uncle Al uses false advertisement to make extra money, threatens his employees with death if they complain about not being paid, and even forces his star performers to stay in an abusive marriage in to keep his male lead in a good mood. In order to satisfy his never-ending greed, Uncle Al uses deceitful tactics to manipulate his audience and employees, ultimately leading to his depressing demise. Many bosses tell their employees that costumer satisfaction is the most important piece of the business, but, in the case of Uncle Al, making money is far more important. Uncle Al uses utilizes false advertisement throughout the circus to bring in large audiences. On Jacob’s first day of working at the circus, he is assigned to working as a greeter for the sideshow. Cecil, the announcer declares to all the men in the crowd, “‘And now- my apologizes ladies, but this is for the gentleman only… If you’ve got manly blood flowing through your …show more content…
The men that work for him cannot run away from the circus either because it is a source of constant food, water, and shelter which was hard to afford during the Great Depression. As the circus starts to lose money, Al becomes impatient and decides to relight men, including Walter and Jacob’s friend Camel. This act and disrespect for human life makes Jacob and his fellow workers hate Uncle Al with a burning passion, and it also gets Al in trouble with the rail police. Later on in the novel when Al is found dead, Jacob talks of him little because he does not care that he is dead. Al took the lives of too many men for Jacob to even care. The disrespect that Al had for his employees leads to a lack of sympathy for his untimely