Upton Sinclair The Jungle Analysis

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Many people are brought to America in hopes of fulfilling the American Dream, the ideal that everyone in America should have an equal opportunity to achieve success and prosperity through hard work, determination, and initiative. The Jungle by Upton Sinclair, a journalist, muckraker, and Socialist, takes place in Chicago in the early 1900’s and follows Jurgis, a strong Lithuanian immigrant drawn to America by this dream, his wife Ona, and their family as they face the hardships of life in the Capitalist and industrialist society. By first romanticizing the American Dream in the eyes of Jurgis’s family and later using dramatic irony and realism to describe the injustices of Capitalist society, Sinclair is able to debunk this false dream and …show more content…
“So America was a place of which lovers and young people dreamed. If one could only manage to get the price of passage, he could count his troubles at an end” (Sinclair 27). This depicts the naïve belief that many immigrants had when immigrating to America-- that they could find stable employment, livable wages, and an easy life in America. Sinclair uses this romanticization of America to show the innocence of those immigrating to America, and how anyone unknowing would fall into the trap of Capitalism. This trap, instead of allowing the immigrants to gain a life where they could easily live, creates a life of cruelty in which they become tools for the wealthy, upper class to live and grow off of. The use of "lovers and young people" exemplifies Sinclair's belief that this lie of the American dream persuades the naïve into a life of wage slavery. This is a lie that is perpetuated throughout the book, especially in the …show more content…
Throughout the book many of the family members find various jobs, one of which is Ona who finds herself working under Miss Henderson.“Here was a population, low-class and mostly foreign, hanging always on the verge of starvation, and dependent for its opportunities of life upon the whim of men every bit as brutal and unscrupulous as the old-time slave drivers; under such circumstances immorality was exactly as inevitable, and as prevalent, as it was under the system of chattel slavery. Things that were quite unspeakable went on there in the packing houses all the time, and were taken for granted by everybody; only they did not show, as in the old slavery times, because there was no difference in color between master and slave” (Sinclair 180). This depiction of Ona’s working conditions under Miss Henderson, who runs a prostitution ring, show the horrible situation for Ona, who wasn’t doing well financially and was subject to the pressure of her boss. This is a use of dramatic irony to show the terrible unnoticed master-slave relations that go against the ideals of the American Dream, yet weren't noticed immediately by the working class since “there was no difference in color between master and slave.” Sinclair uses this to argue that not only are Social relations under the
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