Gabriella Kurrus
Mr. Kohler
Advanced LA II Second Hour
4 October 2017
The Jungle by Upton Sinclair was a novel written to display the crudeness of Chicago’s big business. It tells the life of Jurgis Rudkus, who moves to Chicago, Illinois from Lithuania. He faces many health and employment related issues in his new life. Upton Sinclair uses capitalism as a symbol of evil, and corruption, he does this by telling the health, and employment related issues Jurgis and his family have, while socialism is symbolized as angelic and bright. What should have been a clear beginning after Jurgis’ wedding, was actually great turmoil. Health issues affected Jurgis Rudkus directly throughout his life, many due to the disregard for immigrants trying to start their lives in America. The job his father is forced into is too much for the old man, and kills him before he is able to work for long. During Jurgis’ first winter in Chicago, the meat factory he works in is unheated and he is always taking the chance of contracting a great sickness. Some time later, he turns to alcohol as a way of self medicating for the horrible work he does at the fertilizer plant. Ona, Jurgis’s wife, dies during the birth of her premature child, due to sexual assault committed by her boss. Employment also plays a role in supporting the evil outlook of capitalism. During this time, many
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He told the hardships of Jurgis and his family’s lives, who came here for the American dream, only to realize what it was really like for an immigrant trying to establish himself. Sinclair used examples of occupation, illness, and a new, hopeful idea as symbols. These symbols supported the idea that capitalism was dangerous, and needed to be limited. Following the publishing of this book, many laws were set in place in favor of the workers, to give them better conditions to work in, and fair
The Jungle by Upton Sinclair is a book set in the Stockyards of Chicago in the early 1900’s. The book has multiple characters, but it mainly follows the character of Jurgis Rudkus who is a Lithuanian man struggling to get by once he moves to America with his love interest and family. This book brought attention to major problems and scandals in the industries, and therefore brought change to the States that is still visible to this day. One of the many conflicts during this time were companies selling spoiled or diseased meat.
The Jungle (1906), by Upton Sinclair, is a story mainly about the life and turmoil of a man who came to American in hopes that he will become a free, rich man with a beautiful wife, Ona, and happy family; this man is the young Jurgis Rudkus, a strong, energetic Lithuanian whose personality and life are all changed several times over the coarse of the story. Major usually tragic events that occur in the story serve as catalysts for Jurgis's dramatic, almost upsetting, transformations. There were four major turning points in Jurgis's life: after he loses his job and is forced to work at a fertilizer mill; when he loses his wife and children; when he is incorporated into the criminal and political underworlds; and when he picks his life
The Jungle by Upton Sinclair is a vivid account of life for the working class in the early 1900s. Jurgis Rudkus and his family travel to the United States in search of the American dream and an escape from the rigid social structure of Lithuania. Instead, they find a myriad of new difficulties. Sinclair attributes their problems to the downfalls of capitalism in the United States. While America’s system was idealistic for Jurgis and his family at first, the mood of the story quickly transforms to assert that capitalism is evil. This theme drives the author’s message and relay of major issues throughout the entirety of the novel. The idea of capitalism and social Darwinism is to
Upton SInclair’s novel, The Jungle, is a novel based on the “Gilded Age” in american history. It is the life of a working man named Jurgis Rudkus and as the story progresses, it shows the corruption and dishonesty of the people during this time period, as well as their reasoning behind their actions. Also as the novel continued, it showed the author's inspiration for the title of this novel. Throughout the book, Upton Sinclair had scattered metaphors as to why Capitalism is corrupt and why Socialism is better. With subtle hints to social classes and how Jurgis progresses through them through corruption.
The Jungle by Upton Sinclair, published in 1906 was written to depict the harsh conditions that immigrants that came to the U.S. lived in. This book describes the life of Jurgis, a young Lithuanian immigrant living in Chicago in search of the American dream. Jurgis faces many hindrances throughout his life in Packingtown. His living and working conditions, the nature of capitalism, and Packingtown’s environment affected both his physical and emotional states.
cheating him out of his money. When Jurgis lived on the streets begging, he was
From 1865 to 1910, the Industrial Age was an interesting time of great economic growth and prosperity for the United States as a whole, however the American citizens who worked to push this positive chain of success paved the way and paid the cost for that very occurrence. In The Jungle, a family from Lithuania travels to the United States in order to gain a better living than what they had in their home country. During their time of adjustment to life within the United States, some members of the Rudkus and Lukoszaite family especially Jurgis Rudkus, experienced extreme hardship while attempting to develop their lives into a better state for the sake of their family’s wellbeing. Upton Sinclair opens a small window into the lives of hopeful and hardworking immigrants to reveal how America’s Industrialization Age hindered many from true freedom. This was due to a lack of care for employees and their wellbeing in the workplace, poor sanitary conditions that led to unhealthy living conditions for workers, and political corruption which was held over certain citizens in order to allow corruption to thrive, making workers remain powerless.
Written at the turn of the 20th century, Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle took place in an era of unprecedented advancement in civilization where the American economy had risen to become one of the wealthiest on the planet. However, Sinclair asserts that the rise of capitalist America resulted in the virulent corruption and competition that plighted society into an untamed “jungle.” Shown by the corruption of the Chicago meatpacking industry, Sinclair highlights the repulsive filth of human greed that was created as a byproduct of the economic boom. The effects of industrialism and the rise of untamed capitalism is what raped the superfluity of workers, like Jurgis Rudkus, of the opportunity to uncover prosperity in America. Not only does The Jungle capture the brutality and acceleration of corrupt capitalism and ruthless Darwinism during the Progressive Era, it also prompts resistance and displacement of the existing political system in favor of a socialist revolution. Through the novel, Sinclair demonstrates how the deterioration of the American Dream was exacerbated by the capitalist greed and corruption that eventually drove Jurgis and his family into mental degeneration and despair.
The Jungle is book that takes the reader in a period in time where the “American Dream” was the only thing worth believing in the daily job struggles of immigrants in America during the early twentieth century. What is the American Dream? It is said that any man or woman willing to work hard in this country and work an honest day is capable living and could support his family and have an equal opportunity to success. Although The Jungle was taken account more on how the meat production was disgusting and unhealthy for production and consumption. However many missed the real message of this book in which Sinclair wants to engage the reader in particular scenario of the failure of capitalism. According to Sinclair, socialism is the only way out of the failure of capitalism. It is the way that all problems can be solved and works for the benefit of everyone where capitalism works against the people. The slow destruction of Jurgis’s family at the hands of a cruel and unfair economic and social system demonstrates the effect of capitalism on the working class. As the immigrants, who believe an idealistic faith in the American Dream of hard work leading to material success, are slowly used up, tortured, and destroyed.
The Jungle is a book that was written in 1906, in the middle of the Progressive Era. It was written by Upton Sinclair for the purpose to try to awaken the reader to the terrible living conditions of immigrants in the cities. This novel specifies in every little detail about the living conditions and the working conditions of the immigrants. In this book, Sinclair indirectly articulates what the American Dream was and what it meant for all the immigrants, with a purpose to reach people’s hearts, but instead it led them to worry about their own health.
The Jungle by Upton Sinclair details the life of a Lithuanian immigrant named Jurgis, in the late 1800’s. In the novel, Jurgis and his family immigrate to America in order to find prosperity and follow the “American Dream”. However, upon reaching reaching America, they face many trials and tribulations. Foremost, no one in the family is able to speak English, as well as being poor immigrants that are easily taken advantage of by society. Initially, Jurgis tries to keep his head up and tries through his own work to succeed, but as the events of the novel unfold, we see him tore down and corrupted. The moral corruption of Jurgis can be seen as a reflection of the environment in which he lived. In the end, Jurgis believed that the capitalistic society that he lived in was against the common man. The Jungle illustrates how greed and unchecked capitalism can have devastating effects on people.
In the book “The Jungle”, Upton Sinclair writes about the life of a young couple and their family, Jurgis Rudkus and Ona Lukoszaite having to move to America after Ona’s father passed away which left them with little money, Jurgis decided to move his and Ona’s family to Chicago from Lithuania to pursue the American dream. Soon after, they learned that their idea of an American dream was not what they had pictured to be. The story entails the unlucky events that the family goes through and the unexpected outcome of it all.
“The Jungle” is a novel by a renowned author by the name of Upton Sinclair. He is an American author who had an interest in addressing the improper conduct of the political and business class. He was born on September 20, 1878, in Baltimore, Maryland. As an author, he was able to publish several novels addressing important issues in the society. His novels include “The Springtime and Harvest,” which was his first novel in 1901 and “The Jungle” among many others. Through his work and dedication, he was also acknowledged as an activist who was ready to address and highlight any social injustice that infringed human rights (“The Jungle”).
“After he graduated from college, he enrolled in Columbia University as a graduate student in 1897. Late in 1904, the editors of the popular socialist newspaper Appeal to Reason sent Sinclair to Chicago to examine the lives of stockyard workers. He spent seven weeks in the city’s meatpacking plants, learning every detail about the work itself, the home lives of workers, and the structure of the business. The Jungle was born from this research and was first published in serial form in Appeal to Reason. The first few publishers whom Sinclair approached told him that his novel was too shocking,
Written by Upton Sinclair, The Jungle explores the sheer, harsh conditions of the living and working environment in the Chicago stockyards. The title is significant because it represents the realities of the labor force and depicts a wild, brutal environment that benefited the wealthy, while leaving the inferior working class fighting to survive. In Particular, the The Jungle denotes the life of Jurgis and his family in Packingtown and their hardships they face in the Chicago stockyards. Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle has a significant title because through corruption and capitalism, the weak and poor suffer, while the strong and wealthy flourish.