Essay on The Jungle by Upton Sinclair, Jr.
At the beginnings of the 1900s, some leading magazines in the U.S have already started to exhibit
choking reports about unjust monopolistic practices, rampant political corruption, and many other
offenses; which helped their sales to soar. In this context, in 1904, The Appeal to Reason, a leading
socialist weekly, offered Sinclair $500 to prepare an exposé on the meatpacking industry (Cherny). To
accomplish his mission, Sinclair headed to Chicago, the center of the meatpacking industry, and
started an investigation as he declared I spent seven weeks in Packingtown studying conditions there,
and I verified every smallest detail, so that as a picture of social conditions the book is as exact as a
government report (Sinclair, The ... Show more content on Helpwriting.net ...
And he writes of dishonest politicians and tricky real estate salesmen. At the core of the story, Sinclair
tells about the devastation and the falling apart of Jurgis s family as a result of the ruthless, abusive,
and oppressive nature of work and life in Packingtown. By the end, Jurgis wanders alone, deprived of
all dignity. He comes across a rally of political socialists, hears a speech on socialism, and
enthusiastically converts to that cause. In the last chapters of the novel, Sinclair manifests arguments
for socialism, in the form of speeches that Jurgis hears. The book ends with an appeal of a socialist
speaker to Organize! Organize! Organize! so that Chicago will be ours! Chicago will be ours!
CHICAGO WILL BE OURS! (Sinclair 372 73)
So, according to some critics, it becomes clear that The Jungle is a propaganda destined to promote
socialism over capitalism, and to reveal the hollowness of the American Dream, which capitalists
define it as being the ability for people to improve their lot and to attain their aspiration for better lives
through hard work. Throughout The Jungle, Sinclair portrays the American Dream from a socialist
vision, and illustrates it as being a mere fictitious fantasy by the capitalists in order to keep the
working class blind to the truth and under their everlasting hegemony.
In regards to the American capitalist system, in Sinclair s viewpoint,
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