Theme Of Socialism In Upton Sinclair's The Jungle

This move was inspired by Jonas who knew someone who made his fortune after moving to America. However, when Jonas arrives to Chicago, he finds out these claims were untrue, and that he was struggling financially. Using the rest of their savings, Jurgis and Ona’s family move into a rundown boardinghouse in a very impoverished part of Chicago, known as Packingtown, which is where most of the meatpackers worked. After moving in, Jurgis looks for work at Brown’s, a

Chapters 22-26: Chapter 22 begins with Jurgis leaving the household without saying a word. He flees by train into the country and begins to learn how to get by. He begins to make a good amount of money, but he spends it all on alcohol and women. Jurgis has lost who he once was, and he can no longer push himself away from the temptations that he used to fight strongly against. He later gets another job, gets a good amount of money, and spends it on alcohol again.

WHAT IS “THE JUNGLE”? The Jungle is book written by Upton Sinclair in 1906, published by Jabber & Company in the state of New York. It contains details on the Chicago meatpacking industry, originally written to help bring awareness to the harsh conditions of immigrants workers in these industries. The public, however, too the terrible, unsanitary conditions of these industries, with rats running along the meat, and employees going to the bathroom in the same spot they work with the meat in.

In Zinn’s chapter 13, The Socialist challenge, The working class didn’t like the conditions that they were having to work in. The Muckrakers, journalists who wrote poor things, wrote newspaper articles, books and the pieces of writing about the conditions the workers had to work in. Some of the main instigators and authors behind the writings consisted of Upton Sinclair, Ida Tarbell, Lincoln Steffens, J.P. Morgan, Eugene Debs, Theodore Roosevelt and Jack London. Each of these individuals offered something different to the fight. Upton Sinclair published The Jungle, which was a novel that shocked the nation discussing the harsh conditions in the Chicago meatpacking plants.

In The Jungle , Upton Sinclair shows The corruption of the Industrial Age through his depiction of working conditions, wages, and living conditions. The working conditions were considered extremely bad in the industrial age. One was that no one could take a day off and if you didn’t go to work you job might not be there the next day. Another example of terrible working conditions was the danger that jurgis was in the Jungle.

From 1860 to 1900 the United States quickly became an “industrial nation,” using its plentiful natural resources of oil, coal, steel, and timber, along with abundant labor to drastically increase production of manufactured goods. During this time period millions of immigrants from Europe (Eastern and Western) along with many from East Asia moved to various cities in the US, leading to both a rise in population density in these areas and a labor surplus. The constant supply of cheap labor combined with a strong spirit of competition and very little government regulation led to the rise of enormous “industrial empires” of steel, railroads, and oil. These raw materials were then processed into a vast array of consumer goods, which entered into

The Jungle had an awesome arrangement to do about communism. Upton disdained Communism and Capitalism an awesome arrangement and imagined that Socialism was the answer. Sinclair

Matthew DeBacker Mr. Shinabarger AS American History 19 October 2015 Corruption in The Jungle The Jungle by Upton Sinclair, was a very impactful book during the industrialization age and still impacts people today. It is considered one of the most important books in the Industrialization Age in America. Upton Sinclair was a muckraker and wanted to draw attention the the terrible things that went on in the meatpacking industry. So he highlighted several key themes such as poverty, capitalism, and immigration during that time period

Towards the end of the novel, Sinclair uses the main character, Jurgis, to advocate Socialism and convey to his audience that this will be the solution to all his problems. Although Chicago still remains a capitalist society, Sinclair definitely had

But, with Socialism being very similar to Communism, many Americans have tended to block out the ideas of Socialism as a threat (“The Jungle” 165). Regardless, Sinclair made sure to include Socialist beliefs in The Jungle. After Jurgis loses most of his family members, including his wife and son, he has nowhere to go and ends up at a convention, where he learns about Socialism: “Every Socialist did his share, and lived upon the vision of the “good time coming” -- when the working class should go to polls and seize the powers of government, and put and end to private property in the means of production” (Sinclair 337). Sinclair also managed to display the popularity and wide acceptance of Socialism: “The Socialists were organized in every civilized nation, it was an international political party… It numbered thirty million of adherents, and it acst eight million votes” (Sinclair 339). Although The Jungle centers on , it also includes a Socialist

As stated before, Upton Sinclair, was ahead of his time with his ability to dig for the truth and show Americans the truth regarding the Chicago meat packing industry. Another large passion of his was politics and the belief in socialism. He advocated against capitalism and ridiculed it within his novel by portraying it as the cause of much downfall for the main character. Sinclair did more for this country with the novel he wrote then many politicians are able to do in a lifetime. He showed through his power of writing the importance of every citizen within America to be woke and involved in every aspect of their lives.

The Bosses squeezed and drained the life of those men. In the book The Jungle written by Upton Sinclair he described the life of a struggling family try to work and stay alive in the filth. The working conditions in the factories were unsafe, unsanitary and people made little. The purpose of this book was for people to become socialist other than capitalist.

There are many other traps around America that deceive the immigrants because their weakness of not knowing English and the desire of getting a great life in America which lead them unpreparedly get fooled by the businessmen. These traps prevented the immigrants from leaving America, because of the significant amount of debt that they have to pay each month, which forced them to keep working and become the slave of this capitalistic society in America. Unfortunately, even they work very hard, in most of the time they will not get anything in return, such that Jurgis’s family cannot even keep the house at the of the book and many of family members’ health destroyed by the harsh working conditions in the

Thus, Sinclair’s purpose of writing The Jungle failed to bring readers to advocate for the rights of workers trapped in the low wages, unsafe working conditions, and long hours of meatpacking factories, but rather, succeeded in opening the country’s eyes to the meatpacking practices that went on behind closed doors and the establishment administrations to protect the public from these unscrupulous

During the time period of the 1900’s, the meat packaging industry in Chicago, as Sinclair mentions in his novel, The Jungle, was a very unsanitary and extremely dangerous workplace that lacked much more than just a few safety precautions. Simple things, such as enforcing hand washing or workers’ rights were unheard of in the working environment. It is clear that Upton Sinclair was trying to expose the worker’s horrendous labor conditions in order to improve their situation, along with the introduction of socialism. Upton Sinclair, in his novel, talks about how a Lithuanian immigrant by the name of Jurgis Rudkus, and his family, travel to Chicago trying to make ends meet. However, they soon realize Chicago was not the place for that.