The Jungle by Upton Sinclair Book Analysis Essay Example

The American Dream— the reason why all immigrants moved to the United States during the 1900s. But what if I told you that this “American Dream” never existed?  The character in the book, The Jungle by Upton Sinclair, tells you exactly what it was like to be an immigrant and be fooled by this dream during a time period called the Progressive era. The Jungle by Upton Sinclair is about a 26-year-old man, named Jurgis Rudkus, who wants to marry a 16-year-old girl, named Ona Lukoszaite. When Jurgis first proposed to Ona, her father shut him down, saying that she is too young for him as she is only 14, and she doesn’t need to marry at the moment due to him being wealthy. Back then, most marriages were either done for political or financial reasons, instead of love like today. Once Ona’s father dies, Ona’s family– which consists of Ona’s stepmother, Ona’s six half siblings, Ona’s step uncle, and Ona’s cousin– decide to accept Jurgis’s offer to marry Ona. Ona’s father's death affects Ona’s family deeply, as they struggle to make money and lose their only source of income (their farm), so they decide to immigrate to a new place to start over and find better luck. Jurgis, his dad, and Ona’s family are Lithuanian immigrants, who move to Chicago, in hopes of living the American dream, getting paid bigger wages, and finding better living conditions. However, once moving to Chicago, the family slowly ran into many financial and health problems and realized that America is not what they imagined it to be. The Jungle by Upton Sinclair illustrates the mistreatment of immigrants and lower class in America, the unfair pay and overworking of the working class, and the poor health conditions for those both living and working during the Progressive era. 

Like in The Jungle by Upton Sinclair, immigrants in the Progressive Era moved to America because of the promises for having a better life and getting better paying jobs. But, when they arrived in America, they learned that this promise did not exist, and was only there so that there were lower class people that businessmen could steal from. Immigrants and the lower class people in The Jungle by Upton Sinclair, were taken advantage of by upper class businessmen, who only cared about money and did not care about how they got their money. The upper class businessmen usually cheated the lower class people/ immigrants by charging them way more than they should’ve paid;“He would begin to serve your guests out of a keg that was half full, and finish with one that was half empty, and then you would be charged for 2 kegs of beer.”(Sinclair15). They also got their money by taking advantage of the immigrant’s lack of English reading abilities;“Now they sat round, scarcely breathing, while the old lady, who could read English, ran over it. ‘Yes. Here it is, of course: ‘With interest thereon monthly, at the rate of seven per cent per annum. That means that you have to pay them seven dollars next month, as well as the twelve dollars’. “ (Sinclair51). They sold houses to immigrants that were made out of cheap material, and made them pay high prices for it;“The house they had bought, it was not new at all, it was about 15 years old, and there was nothing new upon it but the paint, which was so bad that it needed to be put on every year or two. The house was built by a company which existed to make money by swindling poor people. They used the very flimsiest and cheapest material.” (Sinclair49). They also took advantage of the fact that immigrants did not know anything about the United States and their rules once they first arrive; “This happened to them again in New York— for, of course, they knew nothing about the country, and had no one tell them, and it was easy for a man to lead them away, take them to a hotel and keep them there, and make them pay enormous charges to get away.” (Sinclair21). 

Due to all the new factories and markets/ economic growth during the Progressive Era, many employers had to figure out how to find out how to produce all these goods without losing their profits. This led to the overworking and underpaying of the working class, leading them to be poor, and not even be able to buy enough food for themselves, let alone their family. The employers oftentimes exploited their employees and took advantage of the fact that they had to stay in their jobs no matter what, since they couldn’t survive otherwise. Employers did everything they could to keep as much money for themselves as they could, so they started cutting employee’s pay;“There were weeks at a time when Jurgis went home after such a day as this with not more than two hours’ work to his credit– which meant about 35 cents. There were many days when the total was less than half an hour, and others when there was none at all. The general average was 6 hours a day, which meant for Jurgis about 6 dollars a week; and this 6 hours of work would be done after standing on the killing bed till 1 o’clock, or perhaps even 3 or 4 o’clock, in the afternoon.” (Sinclair63). However, this did not mean that they didn’t have to work the full day as usual. Employees paid hourly, but claimed they did not pay for fractions to cheat their employee’s pay;“They did not pay for any fraction of an hour– for ‘broken time’. A man might work a full 50 minutes, but if there was no work to fill out the hour, there was no pay for him.” (Sinclair64). Employers worked their employees unreasonable hours a day, every day;“They began working fifteen or sixteen hours a day. They would start work every morning at seven, and eat their dinners at noon, and then work unit ten or eleven at night without another mouthful of food. When they got home, they were always too tired either to eat or to undress; they would crawl into bed with their shoes on, and lie like logs.” (Sinclair99). Even with all of these hours, the employees were still poor and could not afford, even food, for themselves and their family;“They bought literally nothing but food—and still they could not keep alive on fifty dollars a month!” (Sinclair82).  

Due to the rapid population boom during the Progressive Era, employers had to start making more food more quickly, so they did not worry much about the quality of the food or health violations for both employees and the citizens, and were more worried about making money and getting enough food out there (regardless of if it’s healthy or not). Employees had to work in dangerous conditions that were not suited for humans, and most of them either died or got horrible health conditions;“He worked in a place where his feet were soaked in chemicals, and it was not long before they had eaten through his new boots. Then sores began to break out on his feet, and grow worse and worse. The sores would never heal—in the end his toes would drop off, if he did not quit.” (Sinclair56). Working in the factories was often very unsanitary, and the employers didn’t even let them wash their hands during their break; “There was not even a place where a man could wash his hands, and the men ate as much raw blood as food at dinnertime.” (Sinclair73). Consuming a lot of raw blood can lead to many health risks, such as serious diseases and food poisoning. As for the citizens, they consumed many chemicals and expired meats, that were toxic and dangerous to consume, and can also cause serious diseases, or even death;“ How could they know that the pale-blue milk that they bought around the corner was watered, and doctored with formaldehyde? How could they find out that their tea and coffee, their sugar and flour, had been doctored; that their canned peas had been colored with copper salts, and their fruit jams with aniline dyes?” (Sinclair55). The meat was also handled very carelessly; “ There would be meat that had tumbled out on the floor, in the dirt and sawdust, where the workers had tramped and spit uncounted billions of consumption germs. There was no place for the men to wash their hands before they ate their dinner, and so they made a practice of washing them in the water that was to be ladled into the sausage.” (Sinclair94). 

Upton Sinclair wrote The Jungle to show the public the horrible working conditions for those who worked in the meat factories. Upton Sinclair did not make his thesis clear, as the people at the time it came out were more worried about the meat industry and the horrific way they made the meat. As Upton Sinclair famously said, “I aimed at the public’s heart, and by accident I hit it in the stomach”, which means that he wanted to open the public’s eyes to the horrific working conditions during the time, and not necessarily the meat industry itself. While the Jungle by Upton Sinclair does talk about the meat industry, it is more about the struggles of immigrants and the lower class and the poor working and health conditions during the Progressive Era. The Jungle by Upton Sinclair did make a difference in the food industry, as his book led to new food laws such as the Pure Food and Drug Act and the Meat Inspection Act being passed to make the meat, and food in general, safer for the public. The Jungle by Upton Sinclair was an amazing read, and it does a very good job at portraying what it was like to live and work during the Progressive era as a lower class immigrant. The Jungle by Upton Sinclair became a bestseller a few months after Sinclair published it and brought attention and shock to many people, including the president himself. The Jungle by Upton Sinclair did not get any prizes, but it did get Sinclair an invitation to the White House to speak with the president, Theodore Roosevelt, about how the meat was made in the meat factories.