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The Jungle by Upton Sinclair Upton Sinclair was born in Baltimore on September 20, 1878. Although his family roots can be traced back to a wealthy southern aristocracy, by the time Sinclair was born family could barely meet ends. Sinclair started to write in his early years, while in college, in order to support himself, yet his writings never gained any popularity. During his years in college, Sinclair becomes an adherent of Socialist philosophy, which was gaining momentum at the time. In 1906 he writes his most known book The Jungle that resulted in a public outcry against poor working conditions at meat processing plants. Although authors original intention was to popularize Socialist ideas, he was only thought as an individual, concerned with quality of meat.
After The Jungle Sinclair wrote about 90 literature pieces, but neither of them became as popular as The Jungle. In 1940 he won a Pulitzer Prize for his novel Dragons teeth, which was about the rise of National Socialism in Germany. After having moved to Arizona, Upton Sinclair died in 1968, being much forgotten in time when absurdity of social utopia was becoming ever clear. Upton Sinclair's Jungle is a very fine example of a left-wing political thought at the beginning of century. Young people were being attracted to Socialism because of its idealistic properties.
Although Marxist philosophy is based exclusively on materialism, for many young idealists it constituted a spiritual movement, replacing their faith in traditional values They believed that paradise on Earth is attainable and they wanted to do their part in spreading the notion of Socialism to as many people as possible. The Jungle is actually a propaganda piece, concerns for workers lot here is nothing but a mean of winning more people for the cause. The Jungle is about family of Lithuanian immigrants, struggling for better life, yet failing to do it because of impossible social circumstances. Jurgis Radius and Ona Lukoszaite, after just being married, work hard in order to be able to pay mortgage for their newly bought house. Yet, although they try their best, they still cant succeed, as theyre being exploited in most horrible manner, without having any chance to be able stand up for its civil rights. Being unable to meet ends, Jurgis indulges in drinking; becoming a bum while Ona becomes a prostitute.
Yet, while reading the book, we realize that itd never happen if these two characters were socially protected. Jurgis realizes this too and the book ends with him attending the Socialist meeting and embracing Socialist ideas as his own. It goes without saying that Socialist ideas became very popular among American workers in thirties, casing unions to become a real political power. So, its clear that The Jungle succeeded to reach its goals in the long run. It was there to popularize Socialism and it did, although it was taken for something else after it was being published.
In my opinion, we cant think of The Jungle apart from works of other socialist authors like Theodor Dreiser or Jack London, if were to assess its impact. On one hand, it helped to improve working conditions, on another it popularized Communism as the logical outcome of Socialist movement. According to Marxist theory, Socialism is nothing but one of many stages that ultimately lead to the most just society on Earth. After Soviet spy network was being discovered in America in 1951 many of those arrested had admitted that Sinclair's Jungle influenced them to a large degree, when they were growing up, ultimately causing them to become a Communists I my opinion, Sinclair wasnt genuinely concerned in improving workers lot.
After the ideals of Socialism were fully implemented in Nazi Germany, Sinclair grew to criticize Germans, although it is the fact that Germans workers were the first in the world to enjoy 6 hours work days, paid vacations and the full benefits of free Medicare. It appears very likely that Upton Sinclair had its own agenda. He thought of himself as a visionary of some sort, ready to come up with recipes of how to make workers happy. Yet, his importance as writer could never be compared to many of his great contemporaries. He was an average writer at best with Napoleonic ambitions The Jungle stands as a good example of literature being deployed as tool of political movement. When this happens, its becomes very unlikely that wed be able to find any degree of excellence in such works Bibliography: Sinclair, Upton The Jungle.
Literature@SunSite. web 11. 10. 2004.
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