History Exposed In Upton Sinclair's The Jungle

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In the book The Jungle by Upton Sinclair, the author strives to bring America’s attention to the sad and pathetic lives of the lower working class and hopes to instill a positive change. The author uses a specific and graphic example using a meat packing factory in Chicago during the early 20th century. Working conditions were terrible, workers did not have any safety net to protect them from unfortunate accidents. Social security as we currently take for granted, did not exist back then and workers had little rights. Children were often seen working in dangerous factories, disabled men were outcasts and women were forced to suppress their sense of morality and often worked as prostitutes to carve out a living. History teaches us lessons that our ancestors learned through trial and error. History teaches us not to make the same costly mistakes that our ancestors made. The struggles faced by everyday Americans were the same over a 100 years ago as they are today. Yes there are still many Americans who work in harsh conditions and earn wages that cannot support the …show more content…
The protagonist Jurgis Rudkus (with his wife Ona) and along with some additional family members come to the Chicago stockyards with dreamy eyes full of hope. They do not speak English and find great difficulty adjusting to life in Chicago. The people, the culture, the high costs and the mesmerizing meat packing factory all provide an alien, industrial utopian environment, an environment completely different from the idle village society they had come from. America was the place to be for rags to riches stories and every man had the opportunity to be successful and achieve the American dream. Sadly as was the reality of the Gilded Age of America, it was all a ruse. Poverty and corruption were rampant and the factories employed “bosses” that drove naïve immigrants to work to near slave-like
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