"The Jungle" by Upton Sinclair

Paper Summary:

This paper explains that Upton Sinclair wrote his expose of the meatpacking industry, "The Jungle", partly as a way of demonstrating the rapacious and inhuman nature of capitalism when it was not curtailed by some government controls regarding worker and consumer safety and partly to demonstrate to the consumers of meat products themselves the dangers posed to their health when they ate such tainted foods. The author points out that the metaphors of meat in this book provided Sinclair with many potent metaphors for human life under capitalism.The paper relates that "The Jungle" is not simply a literary text but also a book that changed the world because it led to the implementation of the Pure Food and Drug Act in 1906 and created more human conditions for workers.

From the Paper:

"The production of food and meat does not have to be like it is depicted in "The Jungle", however, in the author's view. Sinclair was no vegetarian. Sinclair focused on European immigrants in his work, partly as a reflection of the reality that such immigrants were usually chosen first and foremost for the low wages that accompanied the horrific task of working in the meatpacking plants. But these immigrants also represented a tie with an earlier and more wholesome relationship with the land. Despite their desperation working in the factories, the European immigrants of Sinclair could remember a time, from their childhood in other nations, where food production was health and agriculturally focused, rather than something that was done purely for profit, without concern for worker's health."

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