What is the main theme of The Jungle?
The main theme of The Jungle is the evil of capitalism. Every event, especially in the first twenty-seven chapters of the book, is chosen deliberately to portray a particular failure of capitalism, which is, in Sinclair’s view, inhuman, destructive, unjust, brutal, and violent.
What is the central primary purpose of The Jungle?
Upton Sinclairs “The Jungle” The Jungle is a novel and a work of investigative journalism; its primary purpose was to inform the general public about the dehumanization of American workers. However the novel was much more effective at exposing the unsanitary conditions of the meatpacking industry.
What role does the government play in The Jungle?
What role does the government play in The Jungle? Federal government inspectors are hired at every packing facility to ensure that the meat being sold to the public is fit for consumption. In reality, the government inspectors are symbols of a corrupt, broken system.
What did The Jungle change?
Upton Sinclair wrote The Jungle to expose the appalling working conditions in the meat-packing industry. His description of diseased, rotten, and contaminated meat shocked the public and led to new federal food safety laws.
What are some symbols in The Jungle?
Symbols
- Packingtown and the Stockyards. Perhaps the novel’s most important symbol is the animal pens and slaughterhouses of Packingtown, which represent in a simple, direct way the plight of the working class.
- Cans of Rotten Meat.
- The Jungle.
What is Chapter 14 of The Jungle about?
Summary: Chapter 14 All manner of dishonesty exists in the industry’s willingness to sell diseased, rotten, and adulterated meat to American households. The working members of the family fall into a silent stupor due to the grinding poverty and misery of their lives.
What is the plot of The Jungle?
The main plot of The Jungle follows Lithuanian immigrant Jurgis Rudkus, who came to the United States in the hope of living the American dream, and his extended family, which includes Ona, Jurgis’s wife; Elzbieta, Ona’s stepmother; Elzbieta’s six children; Marija, Ona’s cousin; and Dede Rudkus, Jurgis’s father.
What literary devices are used in The Jungle?
Upton Sinclair’s use of figurative language. Allusion and symbols in The Jungle. Specific instances of imagery, personification and similes from the novel. Major motifs from The Jungle.
How did The Jungle affect society?
What laws were passed after The Jungle?
What two acts were passed after the publication of the jungle? Not long after the publication of The Jungle, Congress passed and Roosevelt signed the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 and the Meat Inspection Act of the same year.
How does The Jungle end?
Marija has become addicted to morphine. Jurgis is eager to find a job before he goes to see Elzbieta. One night Jurgis wanders into a socialist political rally, where he is transformed. The novel ends with a hopeful chant of revolt: “Chicago will be ours.”
What was the theme of the book The Jungle?
The bartender, who is on the take, introduces the theme of graft and corruption. There is also a split between older Lithuanians who love the traditions, and the younger, who have quickly adapted to the new ways of every man for himself.
What makes Jurgis a hero in the jungle?
Through the course of the novel, Jurgis undergoes a journey that first breaks him down, destroying his youthful optimism and naïvité, and then fills him with renewed hope. At the beginning of the novel, Jurgis is hard-working and determined to achieve the American Dream. He follows cultural traditions of home and family first.
How does the capitalist system work in the jungle?
The capitalist system depicted in The Jungle also tears at the fabric of society by encouraging everyone to seek their own advantage at the expense of everyone else. Graft becomes rampant, as anyone with the least bit of authority uses it to skim money that flows through the system.
Why did Sinclair write the book The Jungle?
Sinclair wrote The Jungle as a political novel to encourage readers to join the socialist movement. By narrating from the audience’s perspective, placing them at the scene, Sinclair brings a journalistic immediacy to the narrative.