Socialism Exposed In Upton Sinclair's 'The Jungle'

The Jungle Analysis Essay

In the novel, The Jungle (1906), author Upton Sinclair, Pulitzer Prize winner, and avid socialist, asserts that a combination of oppression and corporate abuse prevent immigrants from attaining the American Dream. This becomes a running theme throughout the novel as he suggests Socialism as the answer to the evils of capitalism. Sinclair appears to write in hopes of advancing socialist ideology, to get Americans to see that individuals among them, namely immigrants, work tirelessly, yet have a poor standard of living, because of systematic oppression. Because of the author’s condemnatory tone, it would seem as though he writes for a Capitalist and covertly classist American society.

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Although the immigrant workers of Packingtown are the back bones of the corporations, they are devalued, marginalized, abused, and overall treaded like they are disposable goods. Corporations within the meatpacking industry have little regard for their predominantly immigrant employees, as such, the work environment is deplorable. The slaughterhouses are disease-ridden due to sanitation, or lack thereof, and they are also very dangerous on account of all the sharp tool and hazardous chemicals used by the industry. The text states “As for the other men, who worked in tank rooms full of steam, and in some of which there were open units near the level of the floor, their peculiar trouble was that they fell into the vats; and when they were fished out, there was never enough of them left to be worth exhibiting—sometimes they would be overlooked for days” (Sinclair, 108). This is a more literal example of how corporate abuse can prevent immigrants from attaining the American Dream. In this case, the slaughterhouse corporation neglected to put some type of safety mechanism overtop of the vats to prevent workers from falling into the toxic liquid. Thus, those who would fall into vats would die a painful death, as the toxic liquid chemicals in said vats, would burn the immigrant workers till only their marrow remained. Consequently, the fallen immigrant stockyard workers would forfeit attaining their American Dreams, as they were not dead, at the hands of reckless superiors, who compromised employee safety for saving money. In addition, Packingtown officials demonstrated their abuse of corporate power in the cavalier way they would let go of individuals. Sinclair writes “The peculiar bitterness of all this was that Jurgis saw so plainly the meaning of it. In the beginning, he had been so fresh and strong, and he had gotten a job the first