Upton Sinclair's The Jungle: The Right Idea but the Wrong Message

Based upon personal experience, reading The Jungle puts the reader through a wide range of emotions, most of them negative. There is anger for how the meatpackers of early twentieth-century Chicago treat their employees, pity for Jurgis and Ona's helplessness and excessive trust in basic human goodness, resignation over their valiant but ultimately futile attempts to survive in their new homeland, and disgust over the scoundrels like custom officials, corrupt cops, deceiving real estate agents, and even party revelers who skip out without paying their due. It is not difficult to see that, with his style of writing and his frequent philosophical sidebars interspersed throughout the narrative, evoking such feelings in the reader is exactly what the author has intended. Considering the unapologetic socialist propaganda with which he ends the narrative, Sinclair's intent to generate anger over uncontrolled capitalism is understandable. However, as much as it seems fitting to equate Jurgis, Ona, and other men, women and children toiling in and around Chicago stockyards to the cattle going through the slaughterhouse in Chapter 3, only to be used up and discarded by the great, impersonal machinery of capitalism, one must remember that their journey began with the high hopes generated by misinformation. They went to America willingly, attracted by the dreams of high wages and by the rumors that one of their acquaintances - ONE! - "got rich" there. True, their choice was made based on ignorance - but it was a choice nevertheless.

Is it possible to make a success of oneself for an immigrant in America? The question seems silly, considering that this is a nation founded, built, and developed into the most prosperous country in the world by immigrants. Determination and physical strength, however, are not the only attributes necessary for success; it is also necessary to have the right knowledge of how to use the available resources, be it work, information, finances, or other. Despite being a man from the country, Jurgis has the correct notions about how to succeed in America: work really hard yourself so as to give your children the opportunity to get an education and move up in social station. It is unfortunate that these notions are undermined by Jurgis's old-fashioned attitude about women of strong men not needing to work, in combination with his total lack of knowledge of how things work in America or that of the English language. Due to this, despite his diligence, perseverance, and tremendous work ethic, Jurgis is already at a tremendous disadvantage in his quest for the American Dream because he can be easily taken advantage of by people who prey specifically on people like him and his family.

One of Sinclair's main messages in this book is that the only way for workers to survive and eventually strive in a laissez faire capitalist system is by helping one another, by combining their voices into the strength of the union, which then could deal on more equal terms with the business owners. But he also himself mentions that the workforce was, in many instances, just as corrupt as the management or the bureaucracy. Would Socialism turn workers into honest men, caring for a fellow next to them, contributing their labor and sharing equally in its fruits? Sinclair could not know it when he was writing it, but the socialist experience of the twentieth century in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe proved it not to be the case.