Upton Sinclair's Writing Style

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Upton Sinclair influence on the roaring twenties was something much greater than himself. The 1920s, filled with the beauty of partying and industrial wealth that filled the pockets of many americans, as many believed it to be. However on the underside of this fake image, was the horrors of industry that many Americans unfortunately had to suffer. Sinclair single handedly went through the same misfortune as the rest, but unlike others he was inclined to seek change. Sinclair wrote The Jungle, which expressed the horrors many faced including himself. This novel was able to create change within the community, enabling President Theodore Roosevelt to bring acts to enforce change. Sinclair's socialist ideals that attacked the typical capital system …show more content…

Badertscher describes Sinclairs style in his novel The Jungle, “...The book was written in the gritty, realistic style of the period, similar to the novelist such as Theodore Dreiser (“Sister Carrie”) “ (Badertscher, p. 10). This gritty and realistic style is what enabled Sinclair to have such an audience, the realistic descriptions used in his book showed the covered truth as it was. This style is directly what led people to realize how bad much of the industry and which in this period gave voice to the voiceless. The voiceless in which were monopolized in the system and were on the verge of going in to complete poverty. To give a better example of a description his style, Sinclair writes “There would be meat stored in great piles in rooms; and the water from leaky roofs would drip over it, and thousands of rats would race about on it… These rats were nuisances, and the packers would put poisoned bread out for them; they would die, and then rats, bread, and , meat would go into the hoppers together” (Sinclair, p. 137). This style is completely descriptive and disgusting which makes the readers stomach turn because this is what really happened in the meat industry. To help better understand the books impact, it helped lead to the “Meat Inspection Act of 1906” and the “Food and Drugs Act of 1906”. These acts would help forever change the way our food is inspected and verified. If Sinclair didn't use his gritty and realistic style, then our meat industry could have been the same as it or much worse than it ever could have

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