Despite the relatively short history of the United States compared to other major nations, there’s a rich display of cultural variety in American literature. Because the United States was founded on new ideas, history has experienced constant reformations in a smaller span of time, usually due to the demands of the public. There were certain literary pieces that affected our society more than others that became permanent. One such author, Upton Sinclair, is responsible for one of the most successful accidental reforms in American history. Upton Sinclair was born in Baltimore, Maryland to a lower-middle class family in 1878. From an early age, he was engaged in multiple points of view through his moralistic mother and her wealthy, open-minded…show more content… Unfortunately, Jurgis’s son, no more than two years old, has wandered into the street and drowned in a puddle while everyone at the apartment was busy. Feeling he has nothing left to live for, Jurgis leaves Chicago to be a travelling worker, and later, a criminal, using up whatever money he had at bars and brothels. In the end, Jurgis embraces socialism after sitting in on an indoor political meeting. The speaker’s words of uniting against the oppressive businessmen resonated with him, and he decides to join them as a lobbyist. Although many Americans, including his remaining family, have been beaten down by the system, Jurgis feels that socialism could bring some much-needed changes to the country, and to himself.
The novel was a major success, being translated into 17 languages and praised by many prominent figures across the globe. However, the anecdotal message about the plight of immigrant workers and animal abuse was lost on readers. Rather than the story itself, the grotesque details of how meat was prepared in these factories and their lack of proper sanitation was what got the peoples’ reactions. This passage from The Jungle is one of many sections of the novel describing the average routines in the meatpacking
