Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle undoubtedly functions as an exposé of the meatpacking industry as well as a revelation of the mistreatment of immigrants in America. By tracing the journey of an immigrant family to America and telling of the family members’ experiences in America, Sinclair highlights the immoral activities of American businesses. Aware of the corrupt business expenditures, the government practiced laissez faire as it had formed trusts with each industry in order for the government workers
into the Meatpacking Line”, Deborah Fink detailed the inequalities against women and ethnic groups in the meatpacking plant where she had a first-hand experience as a worker. Furthermore, capitalism played an important role in the inequalities in race, gender, culture, and ethnicity, and it has also legitimized the disparities
Upton Sinclair’s childhood and era that he lived in had a significant influence on how he viewed the meatpacking industry and his writing of the Jungle. Sinclair’s novel gave a unique perspective using metaphors, sensory imagery, and naturalism to give readers a sense of what being in the factory was really like to those who have read the book. Upton Sinclair was born in Baltimore, Maryland on September 20, 1878 to a family that was nearly broke. His family did have ties to southern aristocracy
in the meatpacking industry. In The Jungle, Sinclair describes the various adversities that a workingman went through to survive in the early nineteen hundreds, through the life of a Lithuanian immigrant family living in Chicago. Likewise, Schlosser writes about the current challenges that workers of the meatpacking industry experience and the replaceable way they are treated. Although both Sinclair and Schlosser convey the apathetic usage and exploitation of workers in the meatpacking industry
However, that glittering and gleaming American lifestyle is merely a distant ideal for the immigrants living in Packingtown, the meatpacking district of Chicago. Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle portrays life through the eyes of a poor workingman struggling to survive in this cruel, tumultuous environment, where the desire for profit among the capitalist meatpacking bosses and the criminals makes the lives of the working class a nearly unendurable struggle for survival. The novel The Jungle is a
Horrible working conditions in factories have been around since the industrialization era. Although most conditions have changed for majority of the industries, the meat packing industry has yet to experience these improvements. Fast Food Nation publicizes the problems for the employees inside meat packing plants. The affects of the terrible working conditions that employees are put in due to careless employers are shown in Fast Food Nation, which can be addressed by stronger labor unions. The
packing facilities; Philip Armour, Gustavus Swift, and Nelson Morris. As much as 85 percent of consumer meat in the US came from Chicago's vast packing plants. Behind the companies were around 25,000 employees, making up almost half of the entire US meatpacking work force. Most of the employees were underpaid immigrants who spoke little to no english and made a meager one cent an hour. The highest an employee could aspire to was being a "butcher" who were considered the most skilled workers and made up
Rights and responsibilities in the meatpacking industry In the early twentieth century, at the height of the progressive movement, “Muckrakers” had uncovered many scandals and wrong doings in America, but none as big the scandals of Americas meatpacking industry. Rights and responsibilities were blatantly ignored by the industry in an attempt to turn out as much profit as possible. The meat packers did not care if poor working conditions led to sickness and death. They also did not care if the spoiled
he had expected to have to support his wife and other family members, not enough money was being made and they all had to seek work to make ends meet. Rudkus also ends up becoming aware of the schemes that take place in American politics and the meatpacking industry. In chapter nine, the reader is informed that Jurgis has been attending union meetings on a regular basis and has been attending night school in order to learn English. He is shown doing his best to assimilate to American culture, something
Meatpacking pertains to the raising, slaughtering, packaging and processing of livestock such as pigs, cows, and chickens. Prior to slaughter, animals are grown and fed. Food borne illness and pathogens still plague the meatpacking industry since the creation of meatpacking. The government plays a huge role in providing legislation and ensuring the safety of meat products and business. Although the government is meant to inspect and guarantee safety, many unlawful practices appear overlooked pertaining
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. Many impoverished people immigrated to
and cut l... ... middle of paper ... ...S CITED 1. Meatpacking in the U.S.: Still a "Jungle" Out There? (2006), retrieved 4 Jun 2007, from: http://www.pbs.org/now/shows/250/meat-packing.html 2. Parker, Laura, USA just wouldn’t work without immigrant labor, (July 2001), retrieved 4 Jun 2007, from: http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/july01/2001-07-23-immigrant.htm 3. Rural Migration News, Immigrants in Midwestern Meatpacking, (October 1996), retrieved from: http://migration.ucdavis
expose the brutality faced by the workers in the meatpacking industry. He wanted to show people what was really going on in the factory because few people were informed about these companies work conditions .He wanted to show the public that meat was diseased, rotten, and contaminated. This revelation shocked the public which later led to the creation of the federal laws on food and safety.Sainclair strongly shows the failure of capitalism in the meatpacking industry which he viewed as inhuman, destructive
Chicago’s slaughterhouses and the beef trusts of the early 1900’s. In an attempt to highlight the failures of capitalism, corporate greed, and the exploitation of immigrate workers; he describes horrendous accounts of unscrupulous practices within the meatpacking industry. He intended to show the public how destructive the corporate conglomerates really were and how they actually were destroying the ability to achieve the American dream. This story has captivated me more than I expected. Maybe because I
The Jungle is a political fiction novel by Upton Sinclair. The story follows the harsh lives of an immigrated Lithuania couple living in the meatpacking district of Chicago. Sinclair’s purpose for writing this novel is to provide insight to the harsh conditions that immigrants face. However, the Muckraker chapter inadvertently directed everyone’s attention to the meat industry. While evaluating Chapter IX of The Jungle, it is evident that Sinclair’s most prominent purpose for writing this novel is
Upton Sinclair was born in September 20, 1878, in Baltimore. His father, who was an alcoholic, moved him and his family to New York in 1888. His family was very poor, but he spent a lot of time living with his grandparents (Simkin). “Upton Sinclair was a Mid-Twentieth- century novelist and journalist known as a muckraker, whose books exposed the exploitation of the working class” (Rhode 1377). His hard childhood eventually turned him into a socialist. Sinclair was very religious and loved literature
always insisted that The Jungle was misread but did he ever think it could have been miswritten? The style of writing is not effective when addressing issues in a capitalistic society but proves to be very effective when exposing the secrets of the meatpacking industry. The novel is not remembered for being a classic work in literature but rather an important book in history in that it changed the way America looked at food in the early part of the century. Sinclair loses his argument for Socialism at
“The Hidden Jungle”: It’s Hard to Find What if a book that lacked literary expertise according to critics still managed to change a whole system of industry? A book that literary critics would call sub-par but would could cause an uproar solely by revealing the unsanitary conditions of a workplace. Such is the case with Upton Sinclair’s 1906 book The Jungle. Often not considered one of the legends of writing, Sinclair published over ninety literary works that received little attention and readership
The result of his seven-week investigation was The Jungle, first published in serial form by Appeal to Reason in 1905 and then as a book in 1906. Though intended to create sympathy for the exploited and poorly treated immigrant workers in the meatpacking industry, the novel instead aroused widespread public indignation at the low quality of and impurities in processed meats and thus helped bring about the passage of federal food-inspection laws. As Sinclair commented at the time, ‘I aimed at the
In 1904, Upton Sinclair published The Jungle: a book that focused on the terrible working conditions for the workers in meatpacking plants and the disturbing products that went into the food thousands of people ate. In 2001, Eric Schlosser published his Fast Food Nation, a book many saw as just and updated version of Sinclair’s. However, the case can be proven that it is just as important to read Schlosser’s version now as it was Sinclair’s in 1904, if not more important. In 1904 the fast