THE COAL WAR
Book 1, The Social Chasm
By: Upton Sinclair
Upton Sinclair wrote The Coal War in 1976 being published by Colorado Associated University Press. Book One; "The Social Chasm," contained 69 pages while the entirety of The Coal War had 399 pages with two other Books. "The Social Chasm" was easy to follow and had an intriguing beginning.
The Coal War portrays many situations common to the people of the coal fields and those making an effort to improve its conditions. This sequential story takes place in Western City and Harrigan College, where Hal attends. Through Hal, the main character of Upton Sinclair's story, Sinclair reveals his optimism as Hal's determination to fight the coal and mine laborers. The idea of Hal working alone to see that the fields and mines improve shows a general optimistic view.
The Social Chasm tells of the hole that has been dug between the social classes. Hal, a wealthy man that has come from a prosperous and classy family, has heard of the cruelty and chaos that has been taking place at the coal camps in North Valley. Hearing stories of corruption, beatings, and even murders, Hal is convinced that the laborers' treatment be acknowledged and somehow improved. All of Hal's family and friends and even his fiancée, Jessie Arthur, think his troubles and efforts are nothing more than stirring up controversy and disorder. Hal's first plan to expose the North Valley mistreatment was to use a poor boy that had lived in the coal camps and knew of its harm and neglect, named Little Jerry. His father, Jerry, had been beaten by guards who had found out he was a union leader, and was left to die. He recovered eventually, but incidents such as these were common in the camps and Hal was going to make sure that Little Jerry told everyone who could stop such treatment, particularly those attending the Arthur party. The boy, however, just aroused sympathy and compassion from the higher classed people. He was just an unfortunate boy whom Santa Clause had not visited, and so the classy people filled his stomach with food, his hands with toys, and his eyes with glorious sites as he was given a tour of the Arthur estate. Now, having the actual crimes exposed, Hal wished to see the number of people who wanted to help him in his efforts to improve the camps and fields increase.
Although each character delivers their powerful and moving account, I would like to focus on one individual and his struggle to organize the miners. Rondal Lloyd struggled most of his life, he knew the coal mines first hand when he had to leave school to help his dad work in the mines to pay off debt to the company store. Unfortunately, this was common back in the times that this story is based upon. In West Virginia as far back as 1901 there are archives that have tried to set some sort of standards for child labor, but we must remember that these children grew up hard and fast. (West Virginia Mine War...
Manifest Destiny, defined by the letter written by John O'Sullivan in 1839, is "for this blessed mission to the nations of the world, which are shut out from the life-giving light of truth, has America been chosen; and her high example... where myriads now endure an existence scarcely more enviable than that of the beasts of the field". In this also shared what I believe is his view on the purpose of western expansion. He discusses the " beasts of the field", meaning the animals the Native Americans follow, are slightly less enviable than a large number of the people already residing in America. Therefore, the mission of the United States is to spread their ways and the word of God to those who live a "savage" lifestyle.
Similarly, Harte’s story features the “glimmer of hope” that Bierce incorporated into her story. The town of Roaring Camp is greeted with a child who they hope will bring Luck to the Gold Rush town, where Cherokee Sal, the only woman in the town, gives birth to Thomas Luck named by Oakhurst, and the miners become proud of their town, and the talk of the town is bright. As things begin to look bright the town is infatuated with their own deception, believing their rotten luck has ended, and their hope is destroyed in a flood that kills
Steinbeck and Hodgins both examine the idea of “promised land” where their characters, Steinbeck’s Joad family and Hodgins’s returned soldiers, hope to find both joy and prosperity. The characters, however, later learn that the idea of the “promised land” is simply just that - an idea - because it does not exist. While the “promised land” is different in both novels, it being a beautiful home and paying jobs in The Grapes of Wrath and actual land for settlement in Broken Ground, it represents the same hope for both novels – the hope of new, positive beginnings. Both Steinbeck and Hodgins lead readers to believe that the relocation of their characters is setting the stage for a turn of events in their lives, a turn for the better. This change, though, ...
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.
As Coach Boone takes the boys to Gettysburg, they see first-hand where men laid their life on the line for them. The small town of Alexandria shows how a Friday night football game should be and what football and community are all about. The community also proves that even though not everyone sees eye to eye, there is always a compromise. Coach Boone and Coach Yoast also face many difficulties. They must also come together and work as a team to lead this football team where it needs to be. Coach Yoast realizes that he must work with Coach Boone for the sake of the boys he has watched grow up. These two do a great job in showing that overcoming problems is
On August 29th, 2005, Hurricane Katrina, the most expensive hurricane in American history, made landfall in Louisiana with winds of one hundred and twenty-seven miles per hour (“Hurricane Katrina Statistics Fast Facts”). The sheer magnitude of the amount of lives and property lost was enormous, and it was triggered simply by warm ocean waters near the Bahamas ("How Hurricane Katrina Formed"). Nature was indifferent to whether the raging winds and rain would die off in the ocean or wipe out cities; it only follows the rules of physics. A multitude of American authors has attempted to give accounts and interpretations of their encounters with the disinterested machine that is nature. Two authors, Stephen Crane and Henry David Thoreau, had rather contrasting and conflicting interpretations of their own interactions with nature. Crane’s work, “The Open Boat,” is story based on his experience as a survivor
Socialism versus Capitalism in The Jungle by Upton Sinclair Even before the beginning of the twentieth century, the debate between socialists and capitalists has raged. In The Jungle, by Upton Sinclair, he portrays capitalism as the cause of all evils in society. Sinclair shows the horrors of capitalism. In The Gospel of Wealth, by Andrew Carnegie, he portrays capitalism as a system of opportunity. However, both Carnegie and Sinclair had something to gain from their writings; both men had an agenda.
Discuss how Upton Sinclair portrays the economic tensions and historical processes at hand in the late 19th and early 20th centuries
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.
The period in American history between 1900 and 1920 was a very turbulent one. Civil unrest was brewing as a result of many pressures placed upon the working class. Although wealth was accumulating at an astonishing rate in America, most people at the lower economic levels were not benefiting from any of it. Worst of all for them, the federal government seemed to be on the side of the corporations. Their helpless situation and limited options is why the coal strike of 1902 is so important.
“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.
... very good ending. The last few chapters are where Sinclair was just trying to quickly pack in his underlying message. In my mind, I thought “What next? Are we to hope that Chicago became socialist and workers were treated justly?” If Sinclair wanted to successfully promote Socialism, it would have been better to describe Jurgis’s life after becoming a socialist and the resulting benefits.
Taking place in the jungle of meat packing factories during the early 1900s in Chicago, a journalist by the name of Upton Sinclair dissects the savage inner workings of America’s working class factory lifestyle. Sinclair portrayed the grim circumstance that workers faced and the exploited lives of factory workers in Chicago. He became what was then called a mudrucker; a journalist who goes undercover to see first hand the conditions they were investigating. Being in poor fortune, Sinclair was able to blend into the surrounds of the factory life with his poor grimy clothing. The undercover journalist would walk into the factory with the rest of the men, examine its conditions, and record them when he returned home. It is the worker’s conditions
The issues of power, that Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, portrays are concerned with, who has the power, the shifts of power that take place and how power can consume people and try to abuse it, for either vengeance, jealously, material gain or sexual desire.