"The Souls of Black Folk" and "The Jungle"

Paper Summary:

This paper examines how W.E.B. Du Bois' "The Souls of Black Folk" and Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle" are two novels written at the turn of the twentieth century in the U.S. that strive to undermine the whole ideology of racial and social bigotry through writing that emphasizes empathy and humanization. It looks at how both books try to orient the reader firmly in the perspective of a supposed "lesser" class of people - revealing their relatable qualities as human beings as a means of connecting the reader on a personal level.

From the Paper:

"Upton Sinclair's muckraking breakthrough piece of literature The Jungle was written chiefly to expose the horrible conditions of immigrant labor in Chicago's meatpacking industry and to demand accountability for the atrocious infractions against basic human decency therein. Similar to Du Bois, Sinclair wanted to illustrate how prejudice - in this case to foreign migrants - leads to a total domination of one "class" of people over another; it is a domination that reinforces stereotypes of inferiority and prolongs ignorant, classist, and racist beliefs. Du Bois focused specifically on the plight of African Americans, especially in the South, while Sinclair exposited on Eastern immigrant Chicago meatpacking workers. "

Sample of Sources Used:

• Du Bois, W. E. The Souls of Black Folk. Ed. Henry Louis Gates and Terri Hume Oliver. Boston: W. W. Norton & Company, Incorporated, 1999.
• Sinclair, Upton, and George Stade. The Jungle. Danbury: Barnes & Noble, Incorporated, 2005.

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