Upton Sinclair The Jungle Essay

The Jungle By Upton Sinclair

The Jungle By Upton Sinclair “The Jungle” portrays the lower ranks of the industrial world as the scene of a naked struggle for survival. Where workers not only are forced to compete with each other but, if they falter, are hard pressed to keep starvation from their door and a roof over their heads. With unions weak and cheap labor plentiful, a social Darwinist state of “the survival of the fittest” exists. The real story revolves around the integration and eventual disintegration of Jurgis Rudkis and his family, Lithuanian immigrants who move to the Chicago stockyards in hopes of a better life.

Unfortunately, their hopes quickly disintegrate; like thousands of other unskilled immigrants at the turn of the century, financial necessity forces them into virtual slave labor in order to survive. For Jurgis and his family, the slave master is the ruthless and greedy meat packing industry, whose leaders value their workers no more than the animals they slaughter.

“The Jungle” shows the relationship between the animals that were being slaughtered and the workers who were slaughtering them, from very early in the novel. It compares the workers to the animals who are penned up and killed every day in

What Is The Jungle By Upton Sinclair Summary

jurgis, jungle, family, each, pg, animals, work, own, out, workers, shows, life, hopes, even, came, 35, upon, stockyards, nothing, hogs, dreams, being, after, while, very, truly, town, survive, something, political, passage, packing, over, men, meaning, man