The Jungle by Upton Sinclair

First published in 1906, it was initially serialsied in a socialist newspaper called "Appeal to Reason" and then later taken up by Doubleday. Creating a great amount of controversy upon its release, it it a criticism of the American Meat Packing industry and its issues with sanitation. But alongside this, it is also a criticism of the lie that the immigrant workers are sold about the American Dream and the way they are duped into thinking that they are living a happy and fulfilling lifestyle even though they are barely making ends meet. They lie about how they can work their way up through the industry is constantly thrust upon them. But it is known by those above to be a lie that will keep them int he rat race for as long as possible.

The book essentially led to a public outcry about the practices of the Meat Packing Industries and shaped what America knows today as their Food and Safety Laws - regulations which state that there are requirements of the food industries to keep their places of work and packing clean and hygenic. When I first read this book some years ago, I went vegetarian for about a month and, as someone who adores KFC that was a difficult thing to do and yet, I physically could not put any meat into my mouth. It felt disgusting. I spent the rest of the month reading happy books in order to take my mind off it (by happy books, I mean books that make me happy and unfortunately for everyone that means folk horror).

Plot

Jurgis is from Lithuania and has come to America in search of the American Dream - specifically, he has come to Chicago to work in the meat-packing industry. He has a wife named Ona and they are both hoping for a better life for their family. Of course what they receive is quite the opposite of a 'better life' in anyone's book.

They face a whole lot of exploitation. including the harsh working conditions, the long hours in which they can be forced to work without break and the low wages which means that they can barely afford basic food and shelter for their family. And the worst part about it is that their family is growing and so, as people who have come to America in search of a better life, there is more requirement for it now than ever before.

There are a whole lot of different things that they experience that counts as exploitation. One of the most important things is work place injury which means that they have to go to work in pain, or else suffer being docked pay which they now need to feed their children. Loved ones come and go in life and death and without telling you too much about what happens specifically, this has to be one of the most heartbreaking parts of the whole book because in our age of workers' rights, there is more of an understanding about it now than ever before. What is going on with these people is not just wrong, but I believe it was even illegal back then.

As time goes on, Jurgis witnesses more and more hardship in his family, he also experiences more and more difficult in actually being able to afford any of the basics his children require to live. This forces Jurgis to rethink his belief in the American Dream, ultimately he ends up like Willie Loman - he has given up on the whole thing because it doesn't exist. But he is accomodating for the rest of his family. Keeping face becomes more and more difficult when you know that nothing you do is going to change how dire the situation is for you and your family. It is truly just as horrifying emotionally as Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman.

Eventually, Jurgis is left alone and in poverty after his wife, Ona, dies in childbirth. The children are facing illnesses from poor conditions of living and by the end of the book even though Jurgis has been out there campaigning in the socialist organisations - nothing has really changed for him. He is in the same condition (or even worse condition) than before and now, he has practically given up.

Again, one of the most heartbreaking endings in all of American Literature - this book highlights the way in which the little man cannot lift himself up over the big corporations and get them to change, humanise and treat people with quality and justice. It prompted significant changes in the food safety industry and honestly, the public outcry from the novel was so real that it pushed people to turn things around for everyone. It still isn't there yet, but its getting there.

Into the Book

I think that after finding out that it was first published in a socialist newspaper, we can safely say that the most important theme in this book is the exploitation of the labour class. The novel vividly describes the horrific working conditions these people have to deal with, both in endurance and through injury and possible death. The pursuit of purely profit is highlighted by the lack of welfare given to the workers when they are on such dangerous jobs.

The author also looks at the cycle of poverty in which workers are not paid enough to actually live, but sufficiently survive until their next shift. This keeps them in a loop and if or when they are to have a family, it makes it even worse for them as now they have to pay for children as well. This is great news for a capitalist profiteer as the parent will work double-hard to pay for the child and the man at the top can continue the cycle of exploitation through pay twice as strong now.

“The rich people not only had all the money, they had all the chance to get more; they had all the know-ledge and the power, and so the poor man was down, and he had to stay down.”

- The Jungle by Upton Sinclair

Another theme that we have already mentioned but is also pretty important is the disillusionment with the American Dream. This can be seen in other great works of fiction from a relatively similar time period. Books such as Of Mice and Men and Death of a Salesman do this pretty well, but I think that The Jungle does it especially well because it involves people from abroad who were sold this dream and had to leave an entire life, country, language and culture behind to come in search of it only to find out it doesn't even exist. That is absolutely horrid.

The protagonist and his wife have migrated to America in hopes for a better life for them and their family. However the truth of what they receive could not be further from a 'better life'. This is reflective of the 'American Dream' culture to immigrants (I would argue, even today) - that no matter how hard you work it can sometimes seem completely and utterly unattainable.

The novel illustrates also, how the working class whether native or immigrant, are prevented from achieving any for of upward social mobility through not only their exploitation but through the way in which they are purposefully kept silent in order to receive the very little they already have. Working against that guarantees a life of having it taken away. The power lies with the money.

The disillusionment is not what starts off the road though. What starts the road to learning about America and what it really means at this time is done through the blind optimism towards the American Dream. The want to work because of the want to achieve the American Dream is quickly replaced with the requirement to work so that you do not starve. This is where the disillusionment comes in and people begin to see that they have not actually achieved anything at all.

“If we are the greatest nation the sun ever shone upon, it would seem to be mainly because we have been able to goad our wage-earners to this pitch of frenzy."

- The Jungle by Upton Sinclair

Another theme I think is pretty important is one that not many people seem to recognise. It is that the socialist reforms can be the solution to the capitalist exploitations when done properly and implemented by the government. For example: throughout the novel, the Chicago meat-packing factories are described as chaotic and lawless, which obviously caused an uproar upon release and caused very real change in the world. In the novel, the owners and capitalists are shown as living in luxury whilst the workers scramble and fight over scraps. It is not the fact that one has money and the other doesn't. It is the breadth of the divide - the size of the gaping hole in between them.

This is probably seen most through Jurgis' transformation into a socialist ally in his time in America. He becomes disillusioned with the American Dream which favours the capitalists as it means they can exploit this more often (think of Animal Farm and the dream the pigs sold to the other animals) so that it may work for them and then, he transforms into this man who campaigns for socialism. This is not just because of what he himself has faced under capitalism, but because he has recognised that he is part of a pattern of hundreds and thousands of people across America. (Think of the image of the pig and the kind of metaphor it represents in the novel The Jungle in comparison to how the hens are presented in Animal Farm. Both extremes are bad, and both lead to tyranny).

“Can you not see that the task is your task - yours to dream, yours to resolve, yours to execute?”

- The Jungle by Upton Sinclair

Why It's a Masterpiece

The Jungle had a profound impact on American society and politics. Public outrage over the unsanitary conditions described in the book led to the passage of the Pure Food and Drug Act and the Meat Inspection Act in 1906. There was not just this though, there was the book itself as a powerful social commentary about the way workers were exploited by their capitalist owners in order for the people at the top the make the most money possible often at the expense of the worker's lives.

Called a 'crackpot' by Theodore Roosevelt, but understood as a man worthy of praise by Winston Churchill, Upton Sinclair often complained that many people misunderstood his book to just be about not wanting to eat poisoned meat. However, it was about much more than that, including the exploitation of the labour class. Upton Sinclair would famously say that he had "aimed at the public's heart, and by accident...hit it in the stomach." (Cosmopolitan Magazine, 1906).

Conclusion

I hope you end up choosing to read The Jungle if you have not done so already. It is a fantastic book which teaches us so much about not just what it was like back then, but how far we have come since (and how much further we have to go), when it comes to the rights of workers in the labouring jobs of our own countries. It is a brilliant book which brings to life the real struggles of working people in the worst conditions. Many people have often regarded it as a social history rather than simply a work of political fiction.

Next Week: Ravelstein by Saul Bellow