"The Jungle"

From time to time I'll post about what I'm reading because that too is something I do.

I just finished "The Jungle" by Upton Sinclair. It was written in 1906 as an expose on the meat packing industry in Chicago. It follows a fictional immigrant family from Lithuania and chronicles their struggles.

I discuss Upton Sinclair and "The Jungle" when I teach about The Progressives and I have the students read a quote or two from the book but I'll be honest, I never read it. But finally this summer, I dove it and LOVED it.

While reading this I had to keep reminding myself that this is an expose and this was really going on. I think he captured the naivete of the immigrants, that it was going to be grand and perfect when they got to America. I think Sinclair does a great job at contrasting the hopefulness of the immigrants to the reality of the fact that nobody cares about them. Sinclair goes into great detail about how the big businesses manipulate and use the "raw material" (the immigrants) like they don't matter, because back then, they didn't! There were thousands coming off the boat every day and were willing to work cheaper than those already in the country.

I also appreciated the awareness that the characters come to gain by the end of the book, especially Marija. I think it's brilliant.

The only issue I had while reading was the socialist push at the end of the book. My opinion has nothing to do with the political aspect of it, I just thought it was the ending was disconnected to the rest of the story. I mean, I realize there was a large socialist movement during this time. And I recognize that maybe Sinclair could not have finished the story because, in reality, the story was not over so he ended it the best he could.

History Lesson:
After this book was published it really changed the country. Due to Upton Sinclair's expose of the meat packing industry, and others involved, we have the FDA and other food restrictions to make sure that the food we consume is as healthy as possible. Now many may argue that the food we consume today is still not up to perfections but that's a discussion for another time.