Political Novels of The Jungle and Johnny Got His Gun

5117 Words11 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Shakespeare's influence during the Elizabethan Era

Political Novels of The Jungle and Johnny Got His Gun

Introduction:

Although writing has been around for thousands of years, the medium of books is a relatively recent phenomenon. In the mid 15th century, German Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press that made multiple, cheap copies of works that were easily available for the masses. With the help of other technological developments including the linotype in the mid-1880’s, the printing process became easier and faster and therefore books became cheaper and more available. Also in the mid-1880’s the development of public education increased the demand for books making them even more popular and ensuring them as a permanent form of media for the masses.

But most books over history remained focused on religion or non-fiction. But with Samuel Richardson’s Pamela in 1740, the novel was born. The novel differs from pure non-fiction as the Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary defines the novel as “an invented prose narrative that is usually long and complex and deals especially with human experience through a usually connected sequence of events.” Novels over the years have moved people personally, but political novels especially, incite mass movements including the famous example of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin, whose book’s impact was so great that Abraham Lincoln famously told her at the start of the Civil War, “So you’re the little woman who wrote the book that made this Great War!”

For this paper, I chose to read and examine Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle and Dalton Trumbo’s Johnny Got His Gun. Written in the height of the muckraking era, The Jungle exposes the terrible conditions of the meatpacking industry and influenced the American public...

... middle of paper ...

...e Database. “Johnny Got His Gun.” .

Internet Movie Database. “The Jungle.” .

Kriegel, Leonard. “Dalton Trumbo’s Johnny Got His Gun.” Proletarian Writers of the Thirties. Ed., David Madden. Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press, 1968. 106—113.

“Novel.” Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary. 10th edition. 2002.

Olsson, Karen. “Welcome to the Jungle.” Slate. 10 July 2006. .

“One by Metallica Songfacts.” 20 Nov 2006.

Sinclair, Upton. The Jungle. New York: Bantam Books, 2003.

Singer, Peter and Bruce Friedrick. “The Jungle Revisited.” People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. 14 Feb 2006.

Trumbo, Dalton. Johnny Got His Gun. New York: Bantam Books, 1970.

Show More
Related

  • Upton Sinclair's The Jungle: The Progressive Era

    735 Words  | 2 Pages

    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

    Read More

  • Beautiful Boy Rhetorical Analysis

    490 Words  | 1 Pages

    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

    Read More

  • Examples Of Socialism In The Jungle

    1127 Words  | 3 Pages

    The difficult living situations for many people in the early 20th century were discussed in the novel The Jungle, written by Upton Sinclair. The book describes an immigrant family’s struggle to survive after moving to America. The family experiences unsafe working conditions, dangerous child labor and poverty. Sinclair uses these images to shed light on some of America’s troubles, to disparage capitalism and to promote socialism.

    Read More

  • Sinclair's The Jungle: The Need for Rules and Regulations

    1630 Words  | 4 Pages

    Imagine going to work and being sprayed by a scorching splash of molten metal. Wouldn't that be just terrible? Unfortunately for the working-class Americans of the early 20th century (who worked in a steel-factory of sorts), this hellish scene was a reality for them (Sinclair 215). Upton Sinclair's book The Jungle, a ficticious yet all-the-more realistic novel about the Chicago meat packing industry (and just working/life conditions in general for city-dwelling Americans at the time), follows Jurgis Rudkus --- A Lithuanian immigrant trying to live the “American dream”. Unfortunately, that dream is crushed under the deepest and darkest aspects of Capitalism through terrible working conditions, appalling living situations, homelessness/unemployment, and unfair legal and political procedures. These obstacles make excellent examples as for why some rules and regulations are needed in our otherwise Capitalistic society.

    Read More

  • The Role Of Corruption In Upton Sinclair's The Jungle

    929 Words  | 2 Pages

    In Upton Sinclair's 1906 novel, “The Jungle,” he exposes corruption in business and government and its disastrous effects on a family from Lithuania. The novel follows immigrant Jurgis Rudkus as he struggles against the slow ANNIHILATION of his family and is REBORN after discovering that socialism as a cure away to all capitalism’s problems. The Jungle is an example of protest literature because it exposes in a muckraking style the DANGEROUS, INHUMAINE conditions that workers lived and worked in, corruption in business and politics and the unsanitary meat that was sold.

    Read More

  • Muckrakers

    393 Words  | 1 Pages

    The Jungle, the 1906 exposé of the Chicago meatpacking industry. The novel focuses on an immigrant family and sympathetically and realistically describes their struggles with loan sharks and others who take advantage of their innocence. More importantly, Sinclair graphically describes the brutal working conditions of those who find work in the stockyards. Sinclair's description of the main character's

    Read More

  • Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle and the Pure Food and Drug Act

    1672 Words  | 4 Pages

    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

    Read More

  • The Meat Inspection Act of 1906

    586 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • The Growing Opposition to Slavery

    1222 Words  | 3 Pages

    Harriet Beecher Stowe publishes “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” in 1852. This anti-slavery book was the most popular book of the 19th century, and the 2nd most sold book in the century, following only the Bible. It was said that this novel “led to the civil war”, or “the straw that broke the camel’s back”. After one year, 300,000 copies were sold in the U.S., and over 1 million were sold in Britain.

    Read More

  • meat packing industry

    992 Words  | 2 Pages

    At the turn of the twentieth century “Muckraking” had become a very popular practice. This was where “muckrakers” would bring major problems to the publics attention. One of the most powerful pieces done by a muckraker was the book “The Jungle”, by Upton Sinclair. The book was written to show the horrible working and living conditions in the packing towns of Chicago, but what caused a major controversy was the filth that was going into Americas meat. As Sinclair later said in an interview about the book “I aimed at the publics heart and by accident hit them in the stomach.”# The meat packing industry took no responsibility for producing safe and sanitary meat.

    Read More

  • The Jungle by Upton Sinclair

    1571 Words  | 4 Pages

    “The Jungle,” written by Upton Sinclair in 1906, describes how the life and challenges of immigrants in the United States affected their emotional and physical state, as well as relationships with others. The working class was contrasted to wealthy and powerful individuals who controlled numerous industries and activities in the community. The world was always divided into these two categories of people, those controlling the world and holding the majority of the power, and those being subjected to them. Sinclair succeeded to show this social gap by using the example of the meatpacking industry. He explained the terrible and unsafe working conditions workers in the US were subjected to and the increasing rate of corruption, which created the feeling of hopelessness among the working class.

    Read More

  • The Influence of Harriet Beecher Stowe´s Novel: Uncle Tom´s Cabin

    752 Words  | 2 Pages

    “Is this the little woman who made this great war?” Lincoln said as he greeted the renowned author, Harriet Beecher Stowe. This abolitionist writer created her famous novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, in response to the Fugitive Slave Law and the politics about slavery in the South. Some Americans even believed that Stowe and her book brought on The Civil War (Reynolds). Because of this, Harriet needed a way to attract more citizens into the anti-slavery cause. With her book, Stowe showed everyone the truth about slavery, even though not everyone agreed with her. Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin left imprints on many 19th century Americans, which helped to strengthen the abolitionist movement, yet divided the nation.

    Read More

  • An Analysis Of The Jungle By Upton Sinclair

    1412 Words  | 3 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Upton Sinclair's The Jungle

    665 Words  | 2 Pages

    When one thinks of a jungle what usually comes to mind is a lush green forest with thick vegetation and wild animals roaming about. At first glance it may not seem like so bad a place. Just as an actual jungle may seem decent on the outside but wild on the inside, so does the town of Packingtown, the setting for Upton Sinclair’s novel The Jungle. Packingtown is a town in urban Chicago. On the outside the factories in Packingtown may seem like a place that provides jobs for people and provides the town. But on the inside both a jungle and Packingtown are chaotic and hectic. Even though The Jungle does not take place in an actual jungle, Upton Sinclair creates a jungle-like atmosphere in the novel.

    Read More

  • Will Digital Books Replace Print Books?

    969 Words  | 2 Pages

    However, iIn spite of the current pre-eminence of e-books, it may be argued that they are not likely to replace print books anytime soon or possibly at all. Both formats have their advantages and drawbacks, which makes for one of them difficult to replace the other. Moreover, they serve differents needs and purposes. E-books are famous for their portability. Hundreds of e-books can be stored on a single device. Thus e-books don’t take shelving space and are convenient to take on travel, while even a few paper books are bulky and quite heavy to carry around. Numerous e-books are in open access, while paper books are not routinely available free of charge. E-books may be acquired and accessed immediately online, a feature I enjoy especially and treasure most: many a time I was able to buy and read an e-book at home within minutes of learning of its existence. Needless to say, e-books are considerably easier to cite and quote than print books, since the copy-paste feature spares us the trouble of retyping the quoted text. Another important advantage of digital books is their specialized software, which makes reading much easier: search and reference tools, changeable font size and day/night mode, dictionaries. Last but not least, e-books conserv...

    Read More

More about Political Novels of The Jungle and Johnny Got His Gun

Open Document