"The Jungle," by Upton Sinclair

Paper Summary:

This paper discusses "The Jungle," by Upton Sinclair, and its exposure of the treatment of immigrant workers in Chicago's meatpacking plants. The writer provides Sinclair's sources for the novel and a synopsis of its story, and explains its purpose in showing the grim reality of immigrant life and the seamy side of the American Dream. The book aroused considerable furor not only because of its shocking realism, but also because Sinclair's solution for his hero, Jurgis, is to have him turn to socialism. The paper concludes that even though the book "shocked" the nation, and there were threats of lawsuits by meatpackers in Chicago, the basis of the book is to try to find a solution for the social and economic ills of immigrants.

From the Paper:

"What makes The Jungle remarkable is not merely the expose of the conditions at the Chicago stockyards but a depiction of immigrants during the end of the Nineteenth and beginning of the Twentieth Centuries. No longer were these middle class professionals or farmers or entrepreneurs or those with a pioneer spirit. These now were poor, often illiterate workingmen and their families who, in effect, became whites replacing slaves following the Civil War. The Rudkuses were merely a symbol of the fate that befell so many who sought to escape poverty and oppression in Europe, only to find themselves chained to jobs and in slums instead of finding streets paved with gold. America The Beautiful was something Jurgis and Ona Rudkus could never enjoy."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Adler, Anthony: "The Novel That Shocked a Nation" Los Angeles TIMES, Feb. 26, 2006
• Benet, William Rose: Readers' Encyclopedia New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Co., (1965).
• Lerner, Max: America As A Civilization New York: Simon & Schuster 1957)
• Overland, Om: "The Jungle: From Lithuanian Peasant to American Socialist" American Literary Realism Journal (2004)
• Sinclair, Upton: The Jungle New York: Amereon House (undated).

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