at the public’s heart, and by accident I hit it in the stomach.” Upton Sinclair declared this quote after writing his novel The Jungle. Sinclair wrote the novel with the intent of forwarding his personal agenda. He attempted to display the problems of capitalism by describing the awful working conditions of the average worker and convince the reader to embrace socialism. However, Sinclair did not achieve his goal; he succeeded in a different aspect. By describing the horrendous conditions of the…
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American Literature Period B Balance of Power Upton Sinclair’s novel The Jungle, published in 1906, brought to life to promote the riches of life under socialism where people owned and worked the earth in harmony. Exposing the life of an immigrant worker in a Chicago meatpacking plant that shocked the entire nation to the safety and labor practices in the rapidly growing business in a new nation of immigrants. “Socialism was the proper vehicle for righting the ills of mankind, and he later combined…
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Upton Sinclair’s “The Jungle” outlines Jurgis' expedition from the time in which he lacks the judgment about the functioning of capitalism to the understanding of his position as an oppressed laborer, along with the functioning of the capitalist machine. In the beginning, Jurgis does not apprehend the resentment of the other workers or the fact that the union is in need for or labor rights. Even though Elzbieta isn’t as ideologically sincere as Jurgis, she still is aware of the fact that the movement…
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Around the turn of the twentieth century, the society shifted the focus on the abandonment of socialism and the evils of capitalism. The quest to victimize the working class and rebut the idea of Social Darwinism. This new era focuses on the attempt to pursue the American Dream. Although, the wage slavery and the oppression of capitalism, it shattered every aspect of their lives. Ona Lukosazaite and Jurgis Rudkus were two Lithuanian immigrants who recently arrived in Chicago, to marry. Their courageous…
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Sinclair offers socialism as the solution to his characters’ plights, but his suggestion falls short due to his abrupt abandonment of the plot and characters. Another factor that led to the failure of his proposal is his lack of realism when describing how socialism is the solution to the issues faced by his characters. The realism in Sinclair’s symbolism about hogs appealed to many readers’…
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hit it in the stomach.” This is one of the most famous statements in the 20th century by Upton Sinclair during the Industrial Revolution. The Jungle written by a socialist called Upton Sinclair. He took the book to the major publishers, but he was rejected because it was too shocking and depressing, so Upton Sinclair published it himself. He wrote “The Jungle” to raise sympathy for the fight of the workers being exploited by the capitalist system in the late 19th and early 20th centuries in the United…
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In the late 19th century, a tremendous mass of immigrants migrated to the United States, in order to fulfill the American dream. Those that immigrated, which mainly consisted of: Slovakians, Polish, and Lithuanians, illusioned a dream that involved creating a rich lifestyle for their family, seeking new opportunities, and having a sense of freedom. In reality, life was filled with scammers, low-paying jobs, unsanitized food, and a corrupted society. Sinclair stated, in the novel, “ The great corporation…
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The publication of Upton Sinclair’s 1906 novel The Jungle produced an immediate and powerful effect on Americans and on federal policy, but Sinclair had hoped to achieve a very different result. At the time he began working on the novel, he had completed his studies at Columbia University and was trying to develop a career as an author. He had been born in Baltimore in 1878, but his family had moved to the Bronx in 1888. Though he came from a prominent family, his own parents had little money, and…
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America in 1902. In 1934, he abandoned the Socialist Party, and joined the Democratic Party Primary under the false pretense that it would help him get elected as governor of California. He wrote several pieces in the defense of both democracy and socialism. Sinclair wrote in an article during World War I, “If Germany be allowed to win this war--then we in America shall have to drop every other activity and devote the next twenty or thirty years to preparing for a last-ditch defense of the democratic…
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The Jungle by Upton Sinclair. Sinclair was a leading “muckraker,” a group of early twentieth-century American journalists and writers who sought to initiate reforms by exposing social and political excesses and abuses, and The Jungle is one of the best-known pieces of the muckraker movement. Variously admired and excoriated by critics, the novel is responsible for bringing to light the appalling working and sanitary conditions of Chicago's slaughterhouses. Plot and Major Characters: The Jungle…
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