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Upton sinclair purpose for writing the jungle
What was the jungle upton sinclair about
Upton sinclair purpose for writing the jungle
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Within the first few pages of Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, readers are plunged into the nightmarish conditions that workers are forced to endure in Packingtown. People were quite literally worked to death with meager compensation and no rights. Sinclair even states that, “All this was about as near to hell as a man would care to get…” (78). For the conditions were deplorable. Long hours with no compensation were expected, zero consideration was given to the safety of the workers, and such basics as heating and cooling were completely disregarded. As seen on page 72, “On the killing-floor you might easily freeze, if the gang for any reason had to stop for a time. You were apt to be covered in blood, and it would freeze solid; if you leaned …show more content…
From the very first time he is cheated - on his wedding day - he resolves situations by saying, “I will earn more money - I will work harder” (16). Yet, he eventually finds that in Packingtown, no matter how hard he works, there is no way out of his situation. There is always a bill to pay or a scam that he will fall victim to that will leave him destitute. There is always a boss waiting to take advantage of him or an unforeseen situation that drains him. And eventually, he turns to the unions. He sees that he will never stand a chance of winning this struggle alone, but if people banded together, then there might be a chance: “He never missed a meeting.. the speakers were all desperately in earnest, and Jurgis was in earnest too, for he understood that a fight was on, and that it was his fight” (81). The union is what gave workers a fighting chance. With their chants of “Get together! Stay together!” that they cried with “... the ardor of religious devotees; [since] it was their one chance for lie, and the struggle became a kind of crusade” …show more content…
110 years later, and workers still want jobs that they can survive and have a family upon. They still cry, and chant things such as “no justice, no peace” for job security and the ability to take care of their health. HUDS workers asked for this in the form of a guaranteed yearly minimum pay, and an affordable health insurance policy. Their union demanded it from Harvard, and when they were met with resistance, they went on strike to protest these grievances. HUDS used student support and public pressure to eventually win their case with Harvard. All this would not have been possible without the organization and support of the UNITE HERE Local 26
Tensions between union supporters and management began mounting in the years preceding the strike. In April of 1994, the International Union led a three-week strike against major tracking companies in the freight hauling industry in attempts to stop management from creating $9 per hour part-time positions. This would only foreshadow battles to come between management and union. Later, in 1995, teamsters mounted an unprecedented national union campaign in attempts to defeat the labor-management “cooperation” scheme that UPS management tried to establish in order to weaken the union before contract talks (Witt, Wilson). This strike was distinguished from other strikes of recent years in that it was an offensive strike, not a defensive one. It was a struggle in which the union was prepared, fought over issues which it defined, and one which relied overwhelmingly on the efforts of the members themselves (http://www.igc.org/dbacon/Strikes/07ups.htm).
The novel follows a family of immigrants from Lithuania working in a meatpacking factory, and as the novel progresses, the reader learns of the revolting conditions within the factories. Sinclair’s The Jungle illustrates the concept of Bitzer’s “Rhetorical Situation” and Emerson’s quote quite effectively. For instance, the horrendous safety and health conditions of the packing factories were the exigencies that Upton Sinclair was making clear to the reader. The rhetorical audience that Sinclair aimed to influence with his novel was Congress and the president, as both had to agree in order to establish health and safety bills to better the conditions within factories. Sinclair’s efforts did not go unnoticed as in 1906 both the Meat Inspection Act, and the Pure Food and Drug act were approved by both Congress and President Theodore Roosevelt (Cherny,
Upon his 1906 publishing of The Jungle, Sinclair was coined as an avid “muckraker” when President Roosevelt addressed an audience in April of that year. When asked whether or not the novel provided a realistic account of workers conditions within the Chicago meat packing industry, Roosevelt accused Sinclair of being a liar in an attempt to discredit him. A large part of this was credited to Roosevelt’s personal distaste for Sinclair’s apparent link to the Socialist party but, Roosevelt was also unaware that Sinclair had worked undercover at the plant to gather first hand and accurate accounts. The Jungle shined light on the poor working conditions of workers in a meat packing facility. Throughout the novel, Sinclair gave gruesome examples of what workers went through each and every day. Each department of the facility was faced with its own risks and challenges, “There were the wool pluckers, whose hands went to pieces even sooner than the hands of the pickle men; for the pelts of the sheep had to be painted with acid to loosen the wool, and then the pluckers had to pull out this wool with
Upton Sinclair's Purpose in Writing The Jungle Upton Sinclair wrote this book for a couple of reasons. First and foremost, he tries to awaken the reader to the terrible. living conditions of immigrants in the cities around the turn of the century. Chicago has the most potent examples of these. conditions.
Upton Sinclair’s “The Jungle,” gave the most in-depth description of the horrid truths about the way America’s food companies, “the only source of food for people living in the city,” are preparing the food they sell. “The Jungle” describes the terrible
In 1906, socialist Upton Sinclair published The Jungle, a book he hoped would awaken the American people to the deplorable conditions of workers in the meat packing industry. Instead, the book sent the country reeling with its description of filthy, rat infested plants, suspect meats processed and sold to consumers, and corrupt government inspectors. President Roosevelt became seriously concerned by the charges brought forth by Mr. Sinclair and determined the only way to protect consumers from unscrupulous business and unsafe food was to enforce regulation.
Throughout the history of the United States of America the continuation of misfortunes for the workforce has aggravated people to their apex, eventually leading to the development of labor unions.
Discuss how Upton Sinclair portrays the economic tensions and historical processes at hand in the late 19th and early 20th centuries
Beginning in the late 1700’s and growing rapidly even today, labor unions form the backbone for the American workforce and continue to fight for the common interests of workers around the country. As we look at the history of these unions, we see powerful individuals such as Terrence Powderly, Samuel Gompers, and Eugene Debs rise up as leaders in a newfound movement that protected the rights of the common worker and ensured better wages, more reasonable hours, and safer working conditions for those people (History). The rise of these labor unions also warranted new legislation that would protect against child labor in factories and give health benefits to workers who were either retired or injured, but everyone was not on board with the idea of foundations working to protect the interests of the common worker. Conflict with their industries lead to many strikes across the country in the coal, steel, and railroad industries, and several of these would ultimately end up leading to bloodshed. However, the existence of labor unions in the United States and their influence on their respective industries still resonates today, and many of our modern ideals that we have today carry over from what these labor unions fought for during through the Industrial Revolution.
Upton Sinclair, the author of The Jungle, wrote this novel to unveil the atrocious working conditions and the contaminated meat in meat-packing workhouses. It was pathos that enabled his book to horrify hundreds of people and to encourage them to take a stand against these meat-packing companies. To obtain the awareness of people, he incorporated a descriptive style to his writing. Ample amounts of imagery, including active verbs, abstract and tangible nouns, and precise adjectives compelled readers to be appalled. Durham, the leading Chicago meat packer, was illustrated, “having piles of meat... handfuls of dried dung of rats...rivers of hot blood, and carloads of moist flesh, and soap caldrons, craters of hell.” ( Sinclair 139). His description
Eventually, the workers set aside their inhabitations and voted 373 to 427 in favor of the union. When asked, “What are you gonna do now?” Norma Rae said, “live – what else?” The question that the workers at the O.P. Henley Mill were faced with was not, where to work. They had the freedom to choose their employer. The workforce learned that they did not need to be trapped in an insufficient working environment and that by forming a union they could manipulate the parameters set by the Mill Company, to meet their requests.
The corporation had no compassion towards its laborers. This extract from Sinclair’s novel The Jungle explains the terrible conditions in which employees work: “.your hand slips up on the blade, and there is a fearful gash. And that would not be so bad, only for the deadly contagion. The cut may heal, but you never can tell,” (Sinclair, 12).
In the world of economic competition that we live in today, many thrive and many are left to dig through trashcans. It has been a constant struggle throughout the modern history of society. One widely prescribed example of this struggle is Upton Sinclair's groundbreaking novel, The Jungle. The Jungle takes the reader along on a journey with a group of recent Lithuanian immigrants to America. As well as a physical journey, this is a journey into a new world for them. They have come to America, where in the early twentieth century it was said that any man willing to work an honest day would make a living and could support his family. It is an ideal that all Americans are familiar with- one of the foundations that got American society where it is today. However, while telling this story, Upton Sinclair engages the reader in a symbolic and metaphorical war against capitalism. Sinclair's contempt for capitalist society is present throughout the novel, from cover to cover, personified in the eagerness of Jurgis to work, the constant struggle for survival of the workers of Packingtown, the corruption of "the man" at all levels of society, and in many other ways.
In the early 1900's life for America's new Chicago immigrant workers in the meat packing industry was explored by Upton Sinclair's novel The Jungle. Originally published in 1904 as a serial piece in the socialist newspaper Appeal to Reason, Sinclair's novel was initially found too graphic and shocking by publishing firms and therefore was not published in its complete form until 1906. In this paper, I will focus on the challenges faced by a newly immigrated worker and on what I feel Sinclair's purpose was for this novel.
This new campaign structure really instead hope, passion, and even victory mentality within the union. As per Rogers instruction, the union relied on media coverage and making this fight into newsworthy one in order to gain bargaining power through public opinion and sympathy. The Hormel company responds to this new effective methods by characterizing the union to be bad. The Chief Counsel of Hormel states that Rogers refuses to utilize the traditional method of collective bargaining and is instead using “harassment, intimidation, and threats” (Kopple et al., 1990). However, this campaign method was crucial to the success and length of the movement. It was solidarity that carried into the end of the strike that resulted in guilt of those who crossed the picket line and prevented those who didn’t. Although the Hormel strike garnered a lot of attention throughout, it was unsuccessful in the end. This can be attributed to a few factors; for one we see an obvious disagreements between Local Union P-9 and UFCW. This may have played a part in the failure of Local Union P-9 as this might have changes the perspective of the public.