What's Behind The Curtain?

Throughout history, there have been problems in society where most of society is totally oblivious to. However, these problems have caught the awareness of a few people who have an understanding of what is really occurring behind the curtain. In the book The Jungle, Upton Sinclair reveals the issue of the immoral goals of capitalistic society during the late 1800’s and early 1900’s. Similarly, in the movie Food Inc, the producers of the film reveal the truth about modern capitalism through the use of personal accounts and facts, which all effectively use the rhetorical techniques of imagery, pathos, and logos.

In The Jungle, Upton Sinclair bases his novel around the sad life of Jurgis Rudkus. Originally born in Lithuania, Rudkus decided to venture over to America to attempt to earn a better living by working in the stockyards. To his dismay, this never occurs, and he is plunged further and further into debt and trouble with the law. He even turns to a life of crime in order to just survive. On top of that, Sinclair also writes of the suffering that the rest of Jurgis’s must endure. First, Jurgis’s wife is taken advantage of by the head boss—an event that Ona (Jurgis’s wife) never recovers from. Also, Jurgis’s baby son dies one day when he (the son) fall into the street mud and drowns. By writing these and more heartrending stories in Jurgis’s life, Sinclair is able to appeal to pathos, and truly elicit a sad response from his audience. This feeling of pity, Sinclair hopes will drive his audience to act against the system that ruined Jurgis’s life—the Beef Trust. Likewise, in the movie Food Inc, the producers appeal to pathos to call upon their audience to act upon the issue of a corrupt food system in America. The producers add...

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... exploited, then they are just cast aside back into the mud-filled streets of Chicago. This vicious cycle is repeated for every new immigrant group that reached America, and Sinclair hopes that by revealing what is really behind the packaged meat everyone is eating, then the audience will drive at changing the corrupted food system.

Although there are serious problems in society, a few brave people have stood up for the suffering, and have created works of literature and film to reveal the story behind the food on the kitchen table. These heroic people include Upton Sinclair, who wrote The Jungle, and the producers of the movie Food Inc. By using rhetorical strategies such as imagery, and appeal to pathos and logos, Sinclair and the producers are able to persuade the audience to push for more social change, and thus fulfilling the purpose of the book and the film.