Motives Behind Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle"
Created | Updated Oct 27, 2005
“I aimed at the public’s heart and by accident I hit it in the stomach.”
-Upton Sinclair on The Jungle
So okay, Upton Sinclair wasn’t perfect. And while writing The Jungle, his brutally honest little piece of propaganda he published in support of the Socialists, he probably didn’t dream it would ever become the O’Leary cow that caused a Great Chicago Fire of a government investigation which led to the passing of the Pure Food and Drug Act and other similar pieces of legislation. Though exposing the unsanitary conditions in the meat packing industry may have been one of Sinclair’s goals, he was much more interested in opening the public’s collective eyes to a form of government in which, ironically, the word “collective” was probably thrown around a lot. But was his novel really that ineffective, or did the public’s concern over their own health just overshadow the major issues? I mean, the effort was certainly there, but what about the actual rhetorical methods? Which ones worked? Which ones were wastes of paper? I won’t give it away yet, but I’d just like to say that the last couple chapters probably could have had a little more sex, dancing, or violence and a little less…overzealous obsession bordering on religious fanaticism.
Now obviously, one of Sinclair’s secondary goals of cleansing our nation’s supply of meat was the most successfully met, so naturally, that’ll be the first one mentioned in its very own paragraph. His grizzly descriptions of factory practices are so horribly disturbing that they should almost come with their own barf bags. Unfortunately, that would be too expensive. Anyway, the reason these descriptions are so effective is because the macabre aspects are never really emphasized except for the occasional exclamation point. This forces the readers to connect the dots themselves to realize that a passage such as this one in which “…men welcomed tuberculosis in the cattle they were feeding, because it made them fatten more quickly;”(81) actually means that they could have just eaten tubercular beef for breakfast! There are only a few things I can imagine a person doing in response to this information, and all of them involve some sort of disgusting noise. The eventual result of this information being publicized is a little harder to predict, but since the novel was published almost a hundred years ago, there’s a little bit of an advantage there and I’m pretty sure it’s safe to say it was a success in the terms of a little something that sounds very much like the Sure Mood and Plug Tract.
I’m pretty sure that by now it’s obvious what Sinclair’s main goal was, but just in case there’s some confusion as a result of my amazingly quick wit, I will once again say that Upton Sinclair’s goal in writing this novel was to convert more people to the Socialist party. His strategy for succeeding in this was based around the idea that if there is a need to get through to a target audience, then said audience needs to feel some sort of connection with the material. In this case, the target audience was the working class, and Sinclair was pretty good about letting them know he was on their side. Something Sinclair liked to do in this respect was use a little irony to get his point across. A good example of this comes when Jurgis, the main character in the novel, is given a tour of the slaughterhouses and Sinclair makes a fun little comparison between the working class of Packing town and the hogs that they work with. “Who would take this hog into his arms and comfort him, reward him for his work well done, and show him the meaning of his sacrifice? Perhaps some glimpse of all this was in the thoughts of our humble-minded Jurgis, as he turned to go on with the rest of the party, and muttered: ‘Dieve-but I’m glad I’m not a hog!’”(30) So showing the workers how similar their situation was to the animals they were killing, and other such things, definitely got their attention, but unfortunately, the way Sinclair introduces them to and tries to educate them about Socialism (essentially, a string of speeches that I’m sure would be much more engaging if delivered by some sort of political activist) ends up coming across as more than a little weak. So naturally, Sinclair failed at mission.
Upton Sinclair was definitely not perfect. However, we now know why. It was because he was obsessed with something to a point bordering on fanaticism. He was a great writer, and could expertly manipulate the English language, but he was so passionate about Socialism, he must have lost perspective and overlooked the importance of making it appealing. As to why he didn’t revise it after he realized that many people missed his point, Jurgis is as good as mine. Sorry.
-Upton Sinclair on The Jungle
So okay, Upton Sinclair wasn’t perfect. And while writing The Jungle, his brutally honest little piece of propaganda he published in support of the Socialists, he probably didn’t dream it would ever become the O’Leary cow that caused a Great Chicago Fire of a government investigation which led to the passing of the Pure Food and Drug Act and other similar pieces of legislation. Though exposing the unsanitary conditions in the meat packing industry may have been one of Sinclair’s goals, he was much more interested in opening the public’s collective eyes to a form of government in which, ironically, the word “collective” was probably thrown around a lot. But was his novel really that ineffective, or did the public’s concern over their own health just overshadow the major issues? I mean, the effort was certainly there, but what about the actual rhetorical methods? Which ones worked? Which ones were wastes of paper? I won’t give it away yet, but I’d just like to say that the last couple chapters probably could have had a little more sex, dancing, or violence and a little less…overzealous obsession bordering on religious fanaticism.
Now obviously, one of Sinclair’s secondary goals of cleansing our nation’s supply of meat was the most successfully met, so naturally, that’ll be the first one mentioned in its very own paragraph. His grizzly descriptions of factory practices are so horribly disturbing that they should almost come with their own barf bags. Unfortunately, that would be too expensive. Anyway, the reason these descriptions are so effective is because the macabre aspects are never really emphasized except for the occasional exclamation point. This forces the readers to connect the dots themselves to realize that a passage such as this one in which “…men welcomed tuberculosis in the cattle they were feeding, because it made them fatten more quickly;”(81) actually means that they could have just eaten tubercular beef for breakfast! There are only a few things I can imagine a person doing in response to this information, and all of them involve some sort of disgusting noise. The eventual result of this information being publicized is a little harder to predict, but since the novel was published almost a hundred years ago, there’s a little bit of an advantage there and I’m pretty sure it’s safe to say it was a success in the terms of a little something that sounds very much like the Sure Mood and Plug Tract.
I’m pretty sure that by now it’s obvious what Sinclair’s main goal was, but just in case there’s some confusion as a result of my amazingly quick wit, I will once again say that Upton Sinclair’s goal in writing this novel was to convert more people to the Socialist party. His strategy for succeeding in this was based around the idea that if there is a need to get through to a target audience, then said audience needs to feel some sort of connection with the material. In this case, the target audience was the working class, and Sinclair was pretty good about letting them know he was on their side. Something Sinclair liked to do in this respect was use a little irony to get his point across. A good example of this comes when Jurgis, the main character in the novel, is given a tour of the slaughterhouses and Sinclair makes a fun little comparison between the working class of Packing town and the hogs that they work with. “Who would take this hog into his arms and comfort him, reward him for his work well done, and show him the meaning of his sacrifice? Perhaps some glimpse of all this was in the thoughts of our humble-minded Jurgis, as he turned to go on with the rest of the party, and muttered: ‘Dieve-but I’m glad I’m not a hog!’”(30) So showing the workers how similar their situation was to the animals they were killing, and other such things, definitely got their attention, but unfortunately, the way Sinclair introduces them to and tries to educate them about Socialism (essentially, a string of speeches that I’m sure would be much more engaging if delivered by some sort of political activist) ends up coming across as more than a little weak. So naturally, Sinclair failed at mission.
Upton Sinclair was definitely not perfect. However, we now know why. It was because he was obsessed with something to a point bordering on fanaticism. He was a great writer, and could expertly manipulate the English language, but he was so passionate about Socialism, he must have lost perspective and overlooked the importance of making it appealing. As to why he didn’t revise it after he realized that many people missed his point, Jurgis is as good as mine. Sorry.
