America was a different place in 1906 when Upton Sinclair published The Jungle. Teddy Roosevelt was President. The country was coming out of the Gilded Age capitalism into a new progressive era. Monopolistic trusts dominated the economy. Society resembled more of a two-class system and lacked a dominant middle class. Writing fiction, only realistically like a journalist, Sinclair showed how hard working class life was. A quick bestseller, this book led to national reforms, particularly in the meat-packing industry.
The protagonist Jurgis immigrated to Chicago from Lithuania. After moving, his family quickly fell into poverty. He worked as a meat packer, but seemed utterly unable to overcome the obstacles in front of him. His family fell into disrepair, too, and encountered death, prostitution, and drugs. Sinclair aptly named this book after the urban jungle that this family was trapped in.
The book ended in a jeremiad about the virtues of socialism. These opinions seem irrelevant and naive to twenty-first-century life, but are historically useful to understand the society and psychology of the time. No virtuous path to middle class life existed for this family. Understanding this points to its modern-day pertinence: People do desperate things (like Jurgis and his family did) when their lives lack economic stability. This lesson can explain some contemporary politics.
Though a fantastic success and insightful about American life in the early 1900s, this book has some shortcomings. In an instance of racism of the times, blacks were wrongly denigrated as an inferior race. The jeremiad ending the book seemed unnecessarily preachy. The answers to the problems were reductionistic as economics was portrayed as a catch-all solution.
Still, the historical value of this account remains. Working class life is accurately portrayed in a manner that resonated with the people of the time. Poverty and corruption – both in business and in politics – take center stage. These problems remain today. I hope that society has come closer to lasting solutions, but it is good sometimes to remember what going backwards can quickly turn into.
The Jungle
By Upton Sinclair
Copyright (c) 1906
Dover Publications
ISBN13 9780486419237
Page Count: 290
Genre: Realistic Fiction
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