Exposing Capitalism in Upton Sinclairs The Jungle Essay

Exposing Capitalism in The Jungle While the works of Upton Sinclair are not widely read today because of their primacy of social change rather than aesthetic pleasure, works like The Jungle are important to understand in relation to the society that produced them. Sinclair was considered a part of the muckraking era, an era when social critics observed all that was wrong and corrupt in business and politics and responded against it. The Jungle was written primarily as a harsh indictment of wage slavery, but its vivid depictions of the deplorable lack of sanitation involved in the meatpacking industry in Chicago resulted in public outrage to the point where Congress passed the Pure Food and Drug Act and the Meat Inspection†¦show more content†¦The metaphor of the human being as a waste product allows Sinclair to tap into the guilt feelings of his audience. At times, the book reminds one of those late-night TV solicitations for funds for third-world children. What is interesting is that this is not particu larly a good novel to read; the writing is dogmatic and often polemical. Rather than trying to convince with reason and subtlety, Sinclair is shoving a point of view down the throats of those watching. Still, this brutal approach is the only way to make an impression on an audience so far removed from the reality depicted in the novel. Such an approach draws on the Catholic/Jewish/universal guilt that is plied by Sinclair like a preacher through the meat market of industrial life. Rudkus comes into the novel full of hope and the reader must identify with his hopes and dreams. Yet these dreams are not exactly fodder for a successful novel, if Rudkus was to find his American Dream. The dream he finds is as rotten as the sausage that he processes, as is the American Dream in the socialist mindset of Sinclair. It is ironic that Sinclair uses the stories of people being abused by the system as the focus of his propagandistic writing. Throughout the novel it is obvious that Rudkus will be destroyed, and that his familys traditional values will be negated by a system that does not care. It is the slow and plannedShow MoreRelatedThe Jungle by Upton Sinclair: Fame for the Wrong Reason Essay2798 Words   |  12 Pagesideal for the immigrants living in Packingtown, the meatpacking district of Chicago. Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle portrays life through the eyes of a poor workingman struggling to survive in this cruel, tumultuous environment, where the desire for profit among the capitalist meatpacking bosses and the criminals makes the lives of the working class a nearly unendurable struggle for survival. The novel The Jungle is a hybrid of history, literature, and propaganda. Sinclair, a muckraking journalistRead MoreThe Various Sources of Evils in Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle , by Chelsea Franks1155 Words   |  5 Pages The title, â€Å"The Jungle† (Upton Sinclair. The Jungle. New York: Barnes and Noble Classics, 2005), when dissected after having read it, denotes Upton Sinclair’s view of the time period, where Capitalism was the corrupted script for people’s lives rather than Socialism. Throughout the course of the book Upton Sinclair explores, in depth, the evils levied upon stockyard workers, as a result of Capitalism, to include family and immigration, while narrowly serving his own agenda of pushing the conceptRead MoreThe Jungle by Upton Sinclair730 Words   |  3 Pageshistory that seems to be overlooked is that of the food and meat packing industry. In an eye opening novel entitled The Jungle by Upton Sinclair, the author tells a story in which exposes the gut wrenching and shocking facts of what actually goes on in these food processing and meat packing factories in an urban Chicago during the early 1900s. Sinclair does a wonderful job at exposing what actually happened behind these factory doors and informs the reader of the unsanitary process in which animals wereRead MoreThe Jungle by Upton Sinclair Student Critique1539 Words   |  7 PagesThe book The Jungle was introduced as a novel by Upton Sinclair was financed and published with his own money. Upton Sinclair was a famous novelist and social crusader from California. He was born on 20 September 1878 in Baltimore Md. He was the only child of Priscilla Harden and Upton Beall Sinclair. Upton Sinclair’s childhood was lived in poverty, one where his father was an alcoholic, his job as an alcohol salesman most likely contributed to his disease. And although his own f amily was extremelyRead MoreEssay on Steinbecks The Grapes of Wrath vs. Sinclair’s The Jungle1892 Words   |  8 PagesSteinbecks The Grapes of Wrath vs. Sinclair’s The Jungle The global appeal of the so-called American dream of happiness and success has drawn many people to the â€Å"promised land† for hundreds of years. Although the American government preached equality for all on paper, it was driven primarily by money. Both Upton Sinclair and John Steinbeck recognized this and used literature to convey the flaws of capitalism. Sinclair’s The Jungle satirized America’s wage slavery at the turn of the centuryRead MoreOsha And Its Involvement Of The Meatpacking Industry1610 Words   |  7 Pagesinvolvement in the meatpacking industry, the implementation of OSHA had some uplifting attributes even though it had minute significance to the cause as presented by the scholarly individual, Dr. Sears, and the two notable muckraker, Eric Schlosser and Upton Sinclair. In cohesion to the upbringing of change due to OSHA, Claire Epstein’s article, â€Å"Keeping OSHA Records† enhances the awareness of the regulatory incorporation ’s care for the workers safety and documentation by stating â€Å"Employers with more thanRead MoreThe Effects Of Immigration On The United States3647 Words   |  15 Pagescapitalistic businesses of the time period. One muckraker, Upton Sinclair, proposed the solution of a socialist society for America in his book, The Jungle, in order to destroy the power given to large, private businesses. This essay will first provide background information about the corruption in America’s capitalist system, the concept of the American Dream, and Upton Sinclair. The essay will then provide a brief summary of Upton Sinclair’s book, The Jungle, which was written to criticize the concept of the