The Failure Of Capitalism In Upton Sinclair's The Jungle

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Although fictional, The Jungle, by Upton Sinclair, provides an in-depth perception of the lives of the urban workers of what is called “Packing Town”, during the Industrial Revolution. Throughout this expository novel, the main theme of the evils of capitalism is constantly shown with the examples of the economic and sexual oppression, the production of contaminated meat, masculinity compromise, and dehumanization in order to create wealth and power for those who own these corporations. Upton Sinclair continuously expresses the failure of capitalism and how brutal, unjust, inhuman, destructive, and violent it was believed to be. The American dream is the belief of equal opportunity for success brought purely through hard work, determination,…show more content…
Throughout the novel, characters are reduced to their jobs and must lives as animals in order to provide basic needs for survival. Just like they slaughter animals and use them purely for their bodies to be used as profit, so are these workers. They are seen as nothing but a sense of resource and will be used until they are worthless. The conditions they lived and worked under were savage. It is seen that survival is not really based on the “fittest”, but rather based on who was willing to behave in the most corrupt and brutal way. It is an each for their own system creating this jungle. Sinclair related this novel to a group of hardworking, honest immigrants who succumbed and eventually were destroyed by the evil and corruption that came along with capitalism. This implied that those who succeeded in this system were not the best, but actually the evilest and inhuman like of all, treating others like animals which thus created this title of “The Jungle”. Starting off optimistic and excited to start their new lives in the beloved land of opportunities, the Rudkus family are nothing but disappointed. This dream of a new happy beginning is cruelly and consistently crushed time and time again. This disillusionment did nothing but tear their family apart. The false promises of a better life lead them to a life where they are ruthlessly exploited and must turn to drastic measures to do nothing but survive. The exhilarating ideal of the American Dream this family of immigrants had turned to be nothing but a dreaded false American
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