Socialism in The Jungle

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Socialism in The Jungle

The Rudkus family arrived from Lithuania to find Chicago as "a city in which justice and honor, women's bodies and men's souls, were for sale in the marketplace, and human beings writhed and fought and fell upon each other like wolves in the pit, in which lusts were raging fires, and men were fuel, and humanity was festering and stewing and wallowing in its own corruption." (Pg.165) The city, during the time span of the novel, was truly a jungle-like society in which Upton Sinclair found much fault and great room for improvement. Sinclair perceived the problem in American society to be the reign of capitalism. In The Jungle, he presented the reader with the Rudkus family; who encountered a great deal of strife and anguish, through which the evils of American capitalism were portrayed. Upton Sinclair strongly believed in the power of the Socialist party as means of reform, so that the working class would finally have a fair chance of survival against the harsh realms of society. By havocking America's supposed capitalist induced problems upon Jurgis and his family, Upton Sinclair used The Jungle as means of socialist promotional propaganda.

The Rudkus family met myriads of horrific occurrences during their struggle in Chicago. The time when the family came to the United States was a period of appalling conditions for the working class. At this phase of history there were practically no workplace safety regulations at all. Employers were free to dictate work conditions as they saw fit for their own personal welfare. Nor were there social safety nets such as workman's compensation, welfare, or unemployment insurance. Also, if a person was seriously injured on the job to the point that he wa...

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...f all of these three movements with their own best points for reform were to act together, America may have held a faster and more effective path of transformation and healing.

The demoralizing concerns that faced America had no easy resolution. The Rudkus family suffered through horrifying turmoil to barely survive in the country, which they once held in relation to great glory and prosperity. The American dream of freedom and success were crushed under the many downfalls of capitalism during the Gilded Age. Socialism, with its theoretically perfect form of government and its promises of equality and good life for all seemed to hold a bright future for the meagerly working class. This seemingly ideal form of reform found in socialism did not hold the best answer. The path of recovery would not come as easily as Upton Sinclair had rallied for in The Jungle.

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