Meat Packing Industry In The Jungle

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The Jungle is a novel written by Upton Sinclair in 1905. Upton Sinclair opposed capitalism and despised big businesses controlling everything. I choose this book because I do agree that there is a great shady part to capitalism, and I wanted to see what it was about. I knew this book was about exposing the meat-packing industry, and I wanted to know how that could be associated with a title called, The Jungle. This novel astonished America as it was filled with gruesome details page after page describing the research Sinclair had conducted on the meat-packing industry. He wrote this novel to demonstrate how businesses controlled people’s lives and how it forces them to fight amongst one another for financial gain in order to survive. Hence,…show more content…
He married a woman named Ona there who had come with him from Lithuania, along with many of Ona's family members as well. The wedding was something they could barely afford, which left them in debt. This sets the backdrop for the harsh trials that they were just beginning to encounter in their new country. After arriving in America, they are taken to Packingtown to find work. Packingtown is a section of Chicago where the meat-packing industry is centralized. They take a tour of the plant, and see the unbelievable efficiency and speed at which hogs and cattle slaughtered and handled. Nothing was wasted, that meant the filth and guts of meat were packaged as well, because the factory owners seized every opportunity at extra profit. Jurgis quickly found a job in a meat-packing plant. The other members of the family soon find jobs, except for the children, who are put into school. At first, Jurgis is happy with his new job and home country, but he soon learns that America is plagued by corruption, dishonesty, and bribery. He learns about democracy and finds out how corrupt the factory owners…show more content…
The Jungle is, however, more than a piece of propaganda for socialism and this what gave the book the most fame. It describes the horrors of the meat-packing industry in clear vivid detail. People were forced to work from before sunrise to after sunset. In the meat factories, the floors were always moist and filthy. The workers would catch horrible foot diseases, causing them to lose their toes, feet, and even legs. The butchers would be forced to move at a blinding pace, which frequently caused them to cut themselves or others, with their limbs often caught in the process. There was no such thing as worker's compensation back then. If people got injured on the job, they either continue working, or let their family suffer. Imagine reading this book during this time, to discover that rat feces was in your rotten meat, and what your sausages were made out of. The title of this book was a straightforward metaphor as Chicago was a jungle in the sense that most immigrants came here once arriving America. The factories were a jungle in where the workers were treated like animals. Only the strongest survived and would have to commit crimes in order to be at the top of this world of lies, greed, and

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