The Jungle, by Upton Sinclair, is a fictional literary work that illustrates the labor conditions in the Chicago stockyards, describing the harsh realities immigrants faced and exposing the callous side of human nature. The Jungle is a depressing realization of how unregulated capitalistic corporation and monopolies treated human beings as less than human, with complete disregard for the workers' well-being. Throughout the book, Sinclair displays the struggles of an immigrant family in order to expose the failings in American society. Upton Sinclair was a well-known author and “muckraker” journalists in the Progressive Era. The term muckraker is known today as “Investigative Reporting”. Sinclair was recognized for writing realistic fiction
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Sinclair uses a repetitive pattern in the story by describing the sickness and injury's of the immigrant workers, to point out that capitalism is hardest on the very young, old, weak and the sick. Corruption is evident throughout the story and is exhibited several times. A good example offered by Sinclair, is the political vote-buying schemes, political bribes, and the bribing of politicians and law enforcement in return for them to look the other way as the businessmen were exploiting the immigrant workers. Sinclair compares socialism with capitalism, believing that capitalism is a contradictory, corrupt ideology that will inevitably be overcome by socialism. Capitalists are clearly portrayed as the source of social inequality while socialism is depicted as the ideal doctrine that will result in the salvation of humanity. Sinclair is completely one sided in this comparison, with no counter evidence towards socialism. Upton Sinclair wrote this powerful novel and identified every important social, political, and cultural issue's in America. Ironically, if you changed the dates from 1906 to 2015, most of the issues Sinclair wrote about still exist today in some …show more content…
Although the wedding scene served to introduce a lot of the characters and the motivations behind their hopes and dreams, I did not fully understand the significance of this event until later in the story. The Jungle is a small novel packed full of information, where every paragraph used clearly illustrates Sinclair's vision of the message the story is delivering. Even though this story is a work of fiction, it was written in such detail that it seemed more like a factual documentary. Overall I found this book to be incredibly insightful and truthful expose of the devastating pitfalls of unfettered
Sinclair uses a repetitive pattern in the story by describing the sickness and injury's of the immigrant workers, to point out that capitalism is hardest on the very young, old, weak and the sick. Corruption is evident throughout the story and is exhibited several times. A good example offered by Sinclair, is the political vote-buying schemes, political bribes, and the bribing of politicians and law enforcement in return for them to look the other way as the businessmen were exploiting the immigrant workers. Sinclair compares socialism with capitalism, believing that capitalism is a contradictory, corrupt ideology that will inevitably be overcome by socialism. Capitalists are clearly portrayed as the source of social inequality while socialism is depicted as the ideal doctrine that will result in the salvation of humanity. Sinclair is completely one sided in this comparison, with no counter evidence towards socialism. Upton Sinclair wrote this powerful novel and identified every important social, political, and cultural issue's in America. Ironically, if you changed the dates from 1906 to 2015, most of the issues Sinclair wrote about still exist today in some …show more content…
Although the wedding scene served to introduce a lot of the characters and the motivations behind their hopes and dreams, I did not fully understand the significance of this event until later in the story. The Jungle is a small novel packed full of information, where every paragraph used clearly illustrates Sinclair's vision of the message the story is delivering. Even though this story is a work of fiction, it was written in such detail that it seemed more like a factual documentary. Overall I found this book to be incredibly insightful and truthful expose of the devastating pitfalls of unfettered