Customer Reviews

The Jungle

5 star:		(54)
4 star:		(65)
3 star:		(26)
2 star:		(13)
1 star:		(10)

 

 

Having read this as a high school freshman, I decided to take a new look at "The Jungle". "The Jungle", a model of the propongandistic novel, is the tale of Jurgis Rudkus, a Lithuanian immigrant to the Packing house district of Chicago. Written in 1905, it tells the story of Jurgis' working class family which had come to America in search of a better life.

Arriving full of hope, Jurgis sought advancement through a home with the family, the Lithuanian Community, the Church, the industrial machine and politics. Time after time, the naive workman was taken by those whom Upton Sinclair regarded as the oppressors of the people. Every time Jurgis thought that he was a cog in the machine, he ended up being discarded when he was no longer useful to those in whom Jurgis had placed his trust.

Upton Sinclair was disappointed with the results of his book. Intended to win converts to socialism, it was his description of conditions in the packing houses which aided in the enactment of the Pure Food and Drug Act.

"The Jungle" can be appreciated on a number of levels. The action is well paced and holds the reader's interest. As a work of propaganda, it is a model specimen. As an historical insight, it lets the reader into the mind of an early Twentieth Century Socialist reformer. As a report of the life of the early industrial worker, it is entertaining, even if its details are exaggerated for effect. As a political statement, "The Jungle" is in the eyes of the reader. For the true believer, it conveys the truth. For the modern conservative, it is an antiquated and flawed view of the world, which, as time has shown, proposed a remedy which was never right. Which ever camp you fall into, or somewhere in between, "The Jungle" is worth a first, or a second, reading.

This book is a wonderful look into the lives of an immigrant family in the early 1900's. Upton Sinclair was assigned to do an expose on the meatpacking industry in Chicago. The amazing part, what some people do not realize, is how factual the book really is. Since the book was published, only one discrepancy from the truth has been found; the inspector wore a different uniform. Sinclair's original topic was to inform the world of how "workingmen", as called by Sinclair, of the time were treated in the meatpacking plants of Chicago. Instead, the public centered on his description of how the meat was processed and reacted to that part of the story. This is one of the direct causes of the passing of the Pure Food and Drug Act. Sinclair is noted as saying, "I aimed for [the public's] heart, and hit their stomach."

The novel itself chronicles a Lithuanian family who immigrates to America in an effort to make a better life. Though this is not a factual family, many of it hardships were shared by families of this time period. The story is told through the experiences of the protagonist, Jurgis Rudkus. Jurgis is a good man at heart and tries his best to support his family. His efforts are met only with defeat. In many instances his family is taken advantage of because they cannot speak the language and do not understand the culture. Sinclair did a wonderful job describing the horrific conditions of immigrants and the "workingmen" in this time period.

The scenes in the meatpacking facilities get quite graphic and gruesome at some points. Though this may disturb some, I believe it does a good job of giving the story some meat, no pun intended. The original basis of the story was to expose bad working conditions. These horrific incidents suffered by workers are described quite well, from losing of fingers while working, to falling into the vats of cooking meat and never being retrieved. I believe that all the gory details were described very well and were written in a realistic way that added to the story's purpose, which was to expose the meatpacking industry.

It seems Sinclair had a hard time ending the book. In the last few chapters, Socialism is advocated as the answer to all wrongs. Sinclair, being a Socialist himself, may have wanted to add some of his own ideas to the end in order to try to sway the public's belief. I believe this detracted from the book and left the story dangling. Other than this fact, the entire book is well written, and I highly recommend it. The Jungle kept me intrigued, which many classics do not do, and I do not regret reading it in the least.

The Jungle was a powerful tale about an immigrating family with high hopes and dreams that come crashing down on them. Written at the turn of the century, this book tells the real truth. Upton Sinclair captures the truth about working in the meat packing factories called "packingtown" and what life at homes was like. The Rudkus family has high hopes of living in riches as they travel to America. When they arrive they realize America is anything but what they had dreamed. They try to survive from paycheck to paycheck, and when they do get paid they usually spend it quicker than the last trying to make a good life for themselves and their families. If something good happens you can only expect something bad to come up in their path. The socialist type of government is really brought out in this story too. It is hard to imagine this really did happen in America only about 100 years ago.

The Jungle by Upton Sinclair is a great book. It focuses on the hardships and despair of a family of Lithuanian immigrants, although in the end you're not quite sure what his focus was. It is a great book to read for entertainment as well as knowledge and provides a view of the world which most people never see, the bottom of the barrel.
The family faces a few too many tragedies to be realistic and the book becomes a spiel to promote socialism. But when you look past that, it really is a great book and a great chronicle of the working- mans hardships.

Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle," a tale of poverty and politics in early 1900's Chicago has many good and bad facets to it.

To give a brief synopsis of the book:

A Lithuanian family ignorant to the ways of the "free" world moves to America in hopes of something better than they had back home. Upon arriving, they find out that things are worse than they could ever imagined being in America, and for that matter back home in Lithuanian. Horrendous troubles ensue.

Most people associate this book with the the cliché renderings of the meat packing plants detailed in the book. Sinclair was given $500 by a newspaper for rights for a novel he had yet to write, and spent only five weeks in Chicago researching material for his account. After writing it and being turned down by many companies who were too afraid of what might happen had they published it, the factual portrayals Sinclair wrote were investigated by higher authorities, and upon finding that they were valid, Sinclair teamed up with Doubleday and his classic came to be, a classic that prompted government officials into making regulations still held today for food packaging and handling.

The story revolves around Jurgis, the young husband who has come with his faithful (even younger at age 16) wife and his experiences. He realizes that there is no way he as an immigrant can obtain a suitable job, and is left to working in "Packingtown," the area where the meats of many states and major cities are developed. The gruesome accounts lie within---Sinclair talks about how unsanitary the workplace is for the butchers/cleaners/packers, citing situations where people fell in with the dead animals and chemicals and ended up being used in the meats since it would be too hard to fish them out; how pigs were tied to chains and hoisted in the air, screaming at fear of the unknown, only to have their throats sliced seconds later; how a little boy ended up drinking beer (an unknown beverage to him), getting drunk and being left in the factory one night in the cold, and how rats ate him alive. And yes, that's sparing you the details.

I'm not the kind of person who gets easily disgusted, but one can definitely become grossened by page after page of such descriptions, so if you can't handle it, I'll give the stereotypical warning: don't read the book.

Once you get past that, however, one realizes two things: the book as a novel in and of itself is perhaps a little above average, but the main reason why it has stuck around was because of the aforementioned contributions it has made to society. The story is fairly interesting, and has its high points (i.e. the chapter where Ona gives birth to her second child nearly brought me to tears), and even towards the last fifty pages or so, when there are situations where Sinclair does nothing with the story except write about groups of people talking about politics, I wasn't turned off by the general boring aura given off---I was actually pulled to it, and enjoyed it.

As for the physicality of the book, it's well put together. It's not too long (380 pages), has a nice typeset and words to page which makes it easier to read than many books(I finished it in three days without devoting too much time to it), and has a good introduction by Jane Jacobs.

Overall, this is definitely a good book to read over a weekend to mark off your "I've read <<insert title here>>" list. It's a classic for different reasons, but most assuredly worth the purchase. Enjoy.

When I was assigned THE JUNGLE as one of my Summer reading assignments I was told that it was about the slaughter houses and expected it to be all about the gross things that go into our food. I'd heard THE JUNGLE called the FAST FOOD NATION (which I was also assigned) of it's time. But the book talks little about this, and focuses more on the hardships of immigrant life. The bad working conditions are certainly part of this, but the book also talks about the strains on family relationships, the bitter cold, and the way in which the family is taken advantage of time and time again.

Suddenly, at the end, the book shifts gears almost entirely as Sinclair describes the benefits of Socialism. This seems completely out of place. If I'd known-going into it-that the book's purpose was to show the evils of Capitalism and the benefits of Socialism, perhaps I would have paid more attention and watched for clues.

I say this so that perspective readers may begin their reading knowing to look for instances of Capitalism and Socialism throughout the book.

I read The Jungle about 15 years ago as a sophomore in high school. And yet, flashes of the book still come to me. The horrible story of how sausage was made, the way the meatpackers dealt with spoiled meat by taking out the bone, where the meat was most spoiled and using the rest of the meat anyway, etc.

Sinclair wrote this book as a socialist parable to reveal the horrors of American capitalism. He thought that describing the meatpacking industry, an industry that Americans would really care about, would do the trick. As a result, Sinclair researched the industry for a relatively short while and then wrote his book. Perhaps he picked an industry that was too important to Americans because the book touched off a firestorm of reform about meatpacking, but no one was really interested in his socialist theories (with good reason, of course).

The book tells the story of Lithuanian immigrant Jurgis and his family. Jurgis is a strong capable man who instantly gets a job in the meatpacking industry upon arriving in Chicago. There, he sees first hand the unsanitary and cruel meatpacking industry. This part of the book most grips the reader. In order to show that socialism is for everybody, Sinclair takes Jurgis away from this job, gives him an even lowlier job, then makes him a hobo, the puts him in management, etc. None of this works as well as the first part.

Of course, some of the horror stories apart from the story of meatpacking itself also give chills. But the main reason to read this book is for the compelling story of the meat industry in early 20th Century America.

Upton Sinclair tottaly changed the meat-packing industry forever with his book "The Jungle". Any person can find a character in this book to identify with, which I enjoyed immensely. For all of you who have soft stomachs, I DO NOT reccomend this book. It is incredibly gory and gruesome, explaining in detail the methods of preparing meat in the stockyards. I don't think I even went near meat for a week after I read it! Since I am not as old as one may be when they read this book, I had to have a dictionary by my side the whole time while reading. Its a perfect novel for a socialist (which I am not) considering the HUGE speech on socialism at the end of the novel. As boring as this may sound, the story is invigorating and kept me "on the edge of my seat" so to speak. I hate clichés...BUT I just used one...

I chose to read this book because it is so historically important. It gives an in-depth look at Chicago's meatpacking industry and the struggles for immigrants at the beginning of the 20th century. It's not great literature, it reads like non-fiction, but that's what can be expected and that's the point. It seems like the good part of the book was in the middle. The beginning was so slow, and then end was Sinclair's attempt to convert all readers to socialists. It's way too pro-socialism for me, the last 50 pages are all about socialism, and the way he argues for it is not that effective ("Jurgis couldn't believe there were people that didn't get it... it's like 2+2=4"). Good for people interested in history, but not so much literature.

One of the more important historical primary sources pertaining to the understanding of public opinion around the turn of the century; it is a classic example of effective muckraking. The book is not a great literary work. It is, however, well written. The book was intended to send political message that is now dated and gives a fictional account of a real situation. In short, capitalism has brought desolation to the meat-packing district in Chicago through un-just laws, corruption, and the complete exploitation of immigrants trying to make it in America. Interestingly, the book missed it's mark on the public who were disgusted by the descriptions of the meat-packing plants. Instead of striking a direct blow against capitalism through reform, it struck an indirect blow against big-business because a precedence was set when the government clamped down on the food processing industry.