Upton Sinclair's The Jungle: Book Review

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The Jungle: Book Review In 1904, in the midst of a bitter stockyard strike, socialist writer Upton Sinclair’s two-month visit to Chicago’s “Packingtown” area provided him with a wealth of material that he turned into his best-selling novel, The Jungle. The book is best known for revealing the unsanitary process by which animals became meat products. Yet Sinclair’s primary concern was not with the goods that were produced, but with the workers who produced them. Throughout the book, as in this chapter, he described with great accuracy the horrifying physical conditions under which immigrant packing plant workers and their families worked and lived, portraying the collapse of immigrant culture under the relentless pressure of industrial…show more content…
He called upon Congress to pass a law establishing the Food and Drug Administration and, for the first time, setting up federal inspection standards for meat. The Jungle, itself, is an extremely graphic novel depicting the real life of many immigrants once they come to America. This book shows the political scandal, bad working conditions, the taking advantage of cheap labor, and the treatment of immigrants of the early twentieth…show more content…
At this time Social Darwinism was being introduced into society and perfectly depicts the life of the poor, injured, and sick. It is impossible for an immigrant to keep a job for any measurable length of time because of the dangerous conditions of the time, the risk of sickness, and the many people waiting in line to jump in and take a weak person’s job. The strong and willing were the only people who worked. The strong were the ones who did not surrender to the temptation of alcohol and drugs. The strong were the ones who caught the eyes of employers, and the strong were the ones who were able to provide for their family and move up in the world. The book shows many examples of the weak dying or falling into a horrible world of drugs, crime, and completely breaking. The only ones who survive in the world of competitive jobs are the
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