When talking about great American novels of the past, The Jungle will probably come up in the conversation. The Jungle is a story about a gentleman and his family and how they came to America to find a better life, but instead found poor wages and terrible working conditions. Written by Upton Sinclair and published in 1906, The Jungle made not only an social impact but also an economic impact.
Upton Sinclair was born on September 25,1878 in Baltimore Maryland to a middle class family. Sinclair graduated high school early and entered the City College of New York. During his time at college, Sinclair encountered socialist philosophy and become a strong supporter of this political movement. Sinclair wrote 5 novels between 1901 and 1906 all of which socialist philosophy. In 1904, Sinclair traveled to Chicago to start research for his sixth novel, The Jungle. He lived several weeks in the poor part of Chicago to get a feel of what life there was really like.Sinclair wanted to write a novel that built up Socialism by detailing faults and weaknesses of Capitalism.The book is not a well written book when it comes to the plot and language used. It is more a political book that shows the downfalls of Capitalism. The Jungle should be looked at like a historical document and not as a entertainment novel.
The Jungle is a story about Jurgis Rudkus, who travels to America in hopes of finding good wages and a steady job. He is a strong well built young man when he moves to Packingtown. He is married to Ona and has a child, Antanas. Jurgis works at a meat packing factory, where he makes poor wages and becomes loses his good health because of the terrible conditions at the factory. Jurgis learns how poisoned rat meat and even a occasion human who falls into the grinding machine is packaged with the cow meat. He experiencesfirst hand how the United States at that time may have seemed all perfect, but for the majority of immigrants that came…