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Short topic about socialism
Basics of socialism
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The Jungle The Jungle, by Upton Sinclair, emphasizes the importance in changing to become a thriving society through socialism. Sinclair writes his novel to show the corruption that occurs as a result of capitalism. Jurgis’ family is in search for a better life in America where he believes he will make enough pay to support his family. The novel shows that poverty is in control over the working class, but the working class still has a desperation for money. In The Jungle, Upton Sinclair pushes for Socialism by showing Jurgis’ struggle to find work, the hardships of the packingtown workers, and the inequality of all men in this capitalistic society. When arriving to America the family sees the real way that the people live in the city and immediately know it is not the life they thought it would be. When arriving to the city Jurgis says, “Tomorrow, I will get a job, and perhaps Jonas will get one also; and then we can get a place of our own”(Sinclair 35). Jurgis arrives to america with an eagerness to find work to support his family which becomes more and more difficult for him as the story goes on. The constant bad luck that happens to Jurgis is later connected to the faults of capitalism and how corrupt it is for the working class in this society. Soon Jurgis could not support his family on his own and eventually the entire family needs to get a job to pay for their costs. Sinclair builds sympathy for Jurgis and his family throughout the beginning of the novel but also depicts the poverty of the working class and how they are equally struggling to make a living. Sinclair emphasizes the unfairness of capitalism within the struggles of the working class which helps bring most of the attention to the laborious lives th... ... middle of paper ... ... novel. Since scamming is the only way to survive in Jurgis’ world, then it will be done to the vulnerable immigrant families that can not have a say in anything. Jurgis comes to America as a strong willed man looking for better opportunities for his family and himself but is slowly crushed by the hard struggles of a working class man in a society where capitalism is dominant. Sinclair portrays socialism as the resolution to the story but especially to Jurgis’ struggling life. By showing the torment that the working class had to go through because of capitalism, Sinclair wanted to promote the wondrous changes that socialism was going to bring. Sinclair highlights the terrible situations caused by capitalism but pushes for socialism through Jurgis’ intent in finding work, the struggling working class, and the inequality of the men in a capitalistic society.
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.
Coming from an “unconventional” background, George Saunders is readily able to relate to the circumstances the everyday working laborer goes through (Wylie). However, Saunders has an advantage to spread out his ideas and concerns about life in the U.S. via his short stories and novellas. Because of neoliberalism and capitalism and its correlation to the huge wealth gap in the U.S. Saunders focuses his protagonists’ view from a proletariat standpoint, allowing the reader to see the life of consumerism has impacted our society. Saunders does not use conventional methods to portray this reality. Instead, Saunders emphasizes on the “absence” of certain moral human characteristics in order to take the reader away from viewing into a hero’s looking glass— to set a foundation of a world where our morals become lost to our materialistic and inherent need of money (Wylie).
In The Jungle, Sinclair deeply understands his subjects and can make the plots real for the reader. Even in a small section of the book, Sinclair makes me feel, imagine and contemplate his words. Chapters 18 through 23, were chapters that Sinclair took time and effort to write and make it to perfection. In my own perspective, I think he achieved this accomplishment and made these chapters a realistic event.
Sinclair’s The Jungle, is his fictionalized report of Chicago's Packingtown. It traces a family of Lithuanian immigrants in Chicago, and describes the horrifying living and working conditions they endure. Through Jurgis, the protagonist, and his family, Sinclair unfolds the tragedy of suffering of all Packinghouse workers in their pursuit of the American Dream. He gives a detailed description about their ordeals, from their lodging at boardinghouses to their buying of cheated house,...
A major theme of The Jungle is socialism as a remedy for the evils of capitalism. Every event that takes place in the novel is designed to show a particular failure of capitalism. Sinclair attempts to show that capitalism is a "system of chattel slavery" and the working class is subject to "the whim of en every bit as brutal and unscrupulous as the old-time slave drivers"(Sinclair 126). Sinclair portrays this view through Jurgis, a hardworking Lithuanian immigrant and his family. Sinclair uses the hardships faced by this family to demonstrate the effect of capitalism on working people as a whole. Jurgis' philosophy of "I will work harder" is shown not to work in this system. No matter how hard Jurgis worked, he and his family were still stuck in the same squalor. These characters did not overcome the odds and succeed. That would defeat the purpose of the novel; to depict capitalism as an economic and social system that ignores the plight of the working class and only cares for the wealthy, as well as furthering his socialist agenda.
Employment is hard to find and hard to keep and a job isn’t always what one hoped for. Sometimes jobs do not sufficiently support our lifestyles, and all too frequently we’re convinced that our boss’s real job is to make us miserable. However, every now and then there are reprieves such as company holiday parties or bonuses, raises, promotions and even a half hour or hour to eat lunch that allows escape from monotonous workloads. Aside from our complaints, employment today for majority of American’s isn’t totally dreadful, and there always lies opportunity for promotion. American’s did not always experience this reality in their work places though, and not long past are days of abysmal and disgusting work conditions. In 1906 Upton Sinclair’s “The Jungle” was published. His novel drastically transformed the way Americans felt about the unmitigated power corporations wielded in the ‘free’ market economy that was heavily propagandized at the turn of the century. Corporations do not have the same unscrupulous practices today because of actions taken by former President Theodore Roosevelt who felt deeply impacted by Sinclair’s famous novel. Back in early 1900’s in the meatpacking plants of Chicago the incarnation of greed ruled over the working man and dictated his role as a simple cog within an enormous insatiable industrial machine. Executives of the 1900’s meatpacking industry in Chicago, IL, conspired to work men to death, obliterate worker’s unions and lie to American citizens about what they were actually consuming in order to simply acquire more money.
“In twentieth-century America the history of poverty begins with most working people living on the edge of destitution, periodically short of food, fuel, clothing, and shelter” (Poverty in 20th Century America). Poverty possesses the ability to completely degrade a person, as well as a family, but it can also make that person and family stronger. In The Jungle, by Upton Sinclair, a family of immigrants has to live in severe poverty in Packingtown, a suburb of Chicago. The poverty degrades the family numerous times, and even brings them close to death. Originally the family has each other to fall back on, but eventually members of the family must face numerous struggles on their own, including “hoboing it” and becoming a prostitute. The Jungle, a naturalistic novel by Upton Sinclair, reveals the detrimental effects that a life of poverty exerts on the familial relationships of immigrants in Chicago during the early 1900’s.
Sinclair stated that “the animals’ faith emphasized [his] views of how industry treats humankind” (Sinclair 8). Machinery was more important and valuable than the human life, especially the life of an immigrant worker with no rights and freedoms. The author concluded that society was the jungle where people had to work hard in order to survive and escape the challenges of their living. Continuous struggle was needed to maintain the challenges and problems of people’s everyday life enabling them to maintain control over their life and to get the current opportunities. Exploitation of immigrants was another important problem covered in the book promoting specific changes in society. In conclusion, Sinclair made a very convincing argument and his writing was so influential it prompted government action.
When Jurgis first arrives in Chicago with his wife Ona and extended family, he realizes the exploitation of being an immigrant. Because Jurgis is in a euphoric mind of the possibilities America has to offer, he is blinded from the events that are going to occur. Shortly after Jurgis finds his job at the meat packing
From a standpoint of Socialism, Sinclair explores the movement as a plan that can fix what Capitalism has done to America. Through the descriptions of the characters lives, Sinclair effectively explains in detail how disastrous the exploitation of workers
One of the first obstacles that Jurgis encounters is when his family is in search for a house in America. Ona and
The “American Dream” is a characteristic of the United States that includes a set of shining ideals where liberty comprises the chance for wealth and success that are accomplished through laborious work in a community with few barricades. Thus, in the time period between 1905-06, thousands of people in the world immigrated to America in aspirations of building a better life and making the “American Dream” come true, despite the fact that there were a lot of unknown hardships waiting for them ahead on the way to achieve their dream. The characters Jurgis Rudkus and his family in Upton Sinclair’s novel, The Jungle, also did the same. The Jungle is a tale of difficulties and trouble, some successes and countless failures as a family attempts to
In Upton Sinclair's 1906 novel, The Jungle, he exposes corruption in both business and politics, as well as its disastrous effects on a family from Lithuania. In a protest novel, the ills of society are dramatized for its effect on its characters in the story. The Jungle is an example of protest literature because it exposes in a muckraking style the lethal and penurious conditions that laborers lived and worked in, corruption in business and politics, and the unsanitary meat that was sold.
Throughout Sinclair's novel we see illustrations of corruption at every level. Examples of these acts include the following: Union men who get people ...
The American Dream, in America, was no longer an idea among the working men in Chicago, but a fight for survival. Marija was always the strong one out of all the other characters, she was quick to defend her rights and help her family; her transformation at the end of the novel was very tragic. She gave into societies rule (which makes success impossible through good works alone) and accepted her life as a prostitute, and became addicted to morphine. Ona was kind and positive before capitalism consumed her; she was now a weak and miserable character, who ached constantly, and had sold herself to prostitution to save her family from being blacklisted-capitalism’s way of ending employment toward specific individuals. Jurgis’s character was a strong and determined individual, who believed strongly in the American Dream; he too was destroyed by the burdens of society, resulting in a pitiful and faithless working man. He lost his hopes in the American Dream and lived the way success was found-through criminal activity. Sinclair ends Jurgis’s fate with him being saved by socialism, and emphasizes socialism as a