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A review by nicoleziege
The Jungle by Earl Lee, Kathleen DeGrave, Upton Sinclair
5.0
The Jungle by Upton Sinclair is a novel following a Lithuanian immigrant family hoping to achieve the "American Dream" of success and happiness. The family moves to "Packingtown," which is a city near Chicago, Illinois. However, these innocent immigrants do not realize how despicable, ruthless and corrupt the American city of "Packingtown" really is, and they suffer severely as a result of it. By "suffer," I mean they suffer in every way you can possibly imagine.
This is not an easy novel to read, whatsoever. However, I feel that it is an extremely important novel because it exposes how corrupt and disgusting the United States was for poor laborers and immigrants in the early 1900s. Due to the lack of labor reform and food reform, there was no regulation for a minimum wage and for the number of hours that an employee could work. Immigrant workers were used as cheap labor, and they were forced to work almost 12 hours a day, which is absurd and could become torturous with the grueling labor that was required. The treatment of the workers was incredibly poor, and there was nothing that anyone could do about it because the wealthy elites of the town owned everything. If you dared to speak up against them, then you were at heavy risk of losing your job.
Upton Sinclair, the author of the novel, was a journalist at the time of writing this, and he had hoped to use the novel to turn the hearts and minds of the American people toward socialism. However, the effect of his novel turned toward reforming food production and processing, rather than supporting radical reform. Upton Sinclair wrote in his autobiography, "I aimed at the public's heart and by accident hit them in the stomach."
I found this novel to be incredibly profound, and I highly recommend everyone to read this novel because it shines a light on the conditions of the average working man in early 1900s America.
My rating: 5 out of 5 stars Thanks for reading!
-Nicole xoxo (October 3, 2017)
REVIEW UPDATE (November 28, 2017)
I have researched the content of this novel and have researched the effects that this novel had on American history for one of my history papers, and upon my research, I discovered that many of the details about the way that immigrants lived in Packingtown were heavily embellished. Although there was a lack of labor reform, much of how immigrants lived and the conditions they worked in have been found to be factually inaccurate or embellished in some way.
Therefore, I want to retract my previous statements in my review for this novel regarding how the reader should read the novel to get a glimpse into how immigrants actually lived and what they endured in early 1900s America.
As I have discovered, this book was developed from the start as a means of socialist propaganda, even before starting the novel. Although it is obvious that the book is supporting socialism, especially near the end, but the fact that Upton Sinclair desired this novel to be socialist propaganda, which was disappointing to me.
I still think that this novel deserves five stars because it is well-written, engaging, and still shines a light on the debate that existed in the United States regarding socialism vs. capitalism, but I do not recommend taking this novel at its word because it has been proven to be embellished.
If you wish to learn more about how Upton Sinclair embellished the conditions of immigrant life, I would highly recommend checking out the following article because the author of this article does a fantastic job of providing certifiable evidence for how The Jungle should not be taken as fact and how Upton Sinclair embellished many details of his book in order to promote socialism:
Wade, Louise Carroll. "The Problem with Classroom Use of Upton Sinclair's The Jungle." American Studies 32, no. 2 (1991): 79-101. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40643596
Thanks for reading! :)
-Nicole xoxo
This is not an easy novel to read, whatsoever. However, I feel that it is an extremely important novel because it exposes how corrupt and disgusting the United States was for poor laborers and immigrants in the early 1900s. Due to the lack of labor reform and food reform, there was no regulation for a minimum wage and for the number of hours that an employee could work. Immigrant workers were used as cheap labor, and they were forced to work almost 12 hours a day, which is absurd and could become torturous with the grueling labor that was required. The treatment of the workers was incredibly poor, and there was nothing that anyone could do about it because the wealthy elites of the town owned everything. If you dared to speak up against them, then you were at heavy risk of losing your job.
Upton Sinclair, the author of the novel, was a journalist at the time of writing this, and he had hoped to use the novel to turn the hearts and minds of the American people toward socialism. However, the effect of his novel turned toward reforming food production and processing, rather than supporting radical reform. Upton Sinclair wrote in his autobiography, "I aimed at the public's heart and by accident hit them in the stomach."
I found this novel to be incredibly profound, and I highly recommend everyone to read this novel because it shines a light on the conditions of the average working man in early 1900s America.
My rating: 5 out of 5 stars Thanks for reading!
-Nicole xoxo (October 3, 2017)
REVIEW UPDATE (November 28, 2017)
I have researched the content of this novel and have researched the effects that this novel had on American history for one of my history papers, and upon my research, I discovered that many of the details about the way that immigrants lived in Packingtown were heavily embellished. Although there was a lack of labor reform, much of how immigrants lived and the conditions they worked in have been found to be factually inaccurate or embellished in some way.
Therefore, I want to retract my previous statements in my review for this novel regarding how the reader should read the novel to get a glimpse into how immigrants actually lived and what they endured in early 1900s America.
As I have discovered, this book was developed from the start as a means of socialist propaganda, even before starting the novel. Although it is obvious that the book is supporting socialism, especially near the end, but the fact that Upton Sinclair desired this novel to be socialist propaganda, which was disappointing to me.
I still think that this novel deserves five stars because it is well-written, engaging, and still shines a light on the debate that existed in the United States regarding socialism vs. capitalism, but I do not recommend taking this novel at its word because it has been proven to be embellished.
If you wish to learn more about how Upton Sinclair embellished the conditions of immigrant life, I would highly recommend checking out the following article because the author of this article does a fantastic job of providing certifiable evidence for how The Jungle should not be taken as fact and how Upton Sinclair embellished many details of his book in order to promote socialism:
Wade, Louise Carroll. "The Problem with Classroom Use of Upton Sinclair's The Jungle." American Studies 32, no. 2 (1991): 79-101. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40643596
Thanks for reading! :)
-Nicole xoxo