What Are The Similarities Between Upton Sinclair's The Jungle And Realism
Upton Sinclair wrote the novel The Jungle along with several other politically-charged novels. Primarily motivated by politics, Sinclair wrote novels encouraging socialism and condemning capitalism. The literary period, the historical events, his family background, his job experience, and his political opinion inspired Sinclair’s desire to write The Jungle. The bold novel incited bold reactions of both support and criticism. Despite the opinions of the critics, Sinclair’s political outcry is still studied today in classrooms around the nation.
The literary period of realism inspired Sinclair to write about the situations he witnessed in his daily life. Realism reached its peak in the late nineteenth century when Sinclair was young. When …show more content…
Sinclair had a unique perspective which allowed him to see poverty at its worst and wealth at its best. Born to a poor family, Sinclair lived in poverty similar to many of the characters in his novels. However, he also encountered wealth in visits with his mother’s family ("Upton Sinclair Biography"). These experiences gave Sinclair the unusual ability to write accurate depictions of both rich and poor in his novels. In The Jungle, Sinclair tells the stories of many people suffering in poverty, but he also includes the stories of the entitled Master Freddie, and the powerful Boss Scully (Sinclair 194). Sinclair’s rich and poor family gave him experience which influenced his later …show more content…
The Jungle produced a massive cry for change in the food industry and inspired the passage of the Pure Food and Drug Act and the Meat Inspection Act ("Upton Sinclair Biography"). Critics observed Sinclair’s intense investigation of the immigrants in Chicago as a “remarkable feat of reporting” (Granger). However, in achieving Sinclair’s true goal of inspiring compassion for the immigrants, The Jungle fell significantly short. One critic describes it as “a powerful, somewhat clumsily written tract on the hard life of immigrant workers” (Granger). Even Sinclair himself reflected “I aimed at the public's heart, and by accident I hit it in the stomach" (Granger). In trying to stir up sympathy for the immigrants, Sinclair instead created a tragedy too wretched to believe. Though The Jungle inspired many changes in the food industry, it failed in its true mission of saving the immigrants from their
The literary period of realism inspired Sinclair to write about the situations he witnessed in his daily life. Realism reached its peak in the late nineteenth century when Sinclair was young. When …show more content…
Sinclair had a unique perspective which allowed him to see poverty at its worst and wealth at its best. Born to a poor family, Sinclair lived in poverty similar to many of the characters in his novels. However, he also encountered wealth in visits with his mother’s family ("Upton Sinclair Biography"). These experiences gave Sinclair the unusual ability to write accurate depictions of both rich and poor in his novels. In The Jungle, Sinclair tells the stories of many people suffering in poverty, but he also includes the stories of the entitled Master Freddie, and the powerful Boss Scully (Sinclair 194). Sinclair’s rich and poor family gave him experience which influenced his later …show more content…
The Jungle produced a massive cry for change in the food industry and inspired the passage of the Pure Food and Drug Act and the Meat Inspection Act ("Upton Sinclair Biography"). Critics observed Sinclair’s intense investigation of the immigrants in Chicago as a “remarkable feat of reporting” (Granger). However, in achieving Sinclair’s true goal of inspiring compassion for the immigrants, The Jungle fell significantly short. One critic describes it as “a powerful, somewhat clumsily written tract on the hard life of immigrant workers” (Granger). Even Sinclair himself reflected “I aimed at the public's heart, and by accident I hit it in the stomach" (Granger). In trying to stir up sympathy for the immigrants, Sinclair instead created a tragedy too wretched to believe. Though The Jungle inspired many changes in the food industry, it failed in its true mission of saving the immigrants from their