Just finished reading and I have to be honest. It was not an easy book for me to read. I never thought about reading it before because in history class they give you a raw summation of it's contents. It is used as a reason why Theodore Rosevelt created the FDA, this is in American schooling. My whole life, up until now, I thought that it was all about the horrors of the meat packing industry but nothing could be further from the truth. While the main character does get work in a meat packing plant, the book is actually about the horrors of American industrialization. What starts out as a happy immigrant family trying to achieve their dream in America, slowly turns into a nightmare. It is such a disservice for the history curriculum to tell kids that all this book is about is the horrors of the meat packing industry. This book probably could not be read by most high schoolers but I think it is an essential reading to understand the horrors of industrialization and rampant capitalism. It seems to me that education wants to obviscate this book because it is so damning to the history of America. Just some quick thoughts on the book. Did not want to put spoilers and if you have not read this book you really need to.
by theholybookofenoch
39 Comments
Sinclair’s primary motivation was furthering Socialism in America. He was dismayed by the reaction stating “I aimed at the public’s heart, and by accident I hit it in the stomach.”
I think you just had a bad teacher. Our teacher, who actually had us read the book (Well most of the book, we didn’t have to read the last section which is just about socialism) specifically wanted us to read it to learn about the lives of immigrants at that time. She also did explain that at the time, the only reaction this got from people was to reform the meat packing industry.
But yea, our American history education is a joke. If you haven’t already, you might be interested in reading “Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything your American History Textbook Got Wrong”. Last few chapters get a bit preachy, but the the early chapters and everything focused on actual history is very interesting.
Fyi The Grapes of Wrath has nothing to do with Paul Giamanti in the movie sideways.
I see this book more as a wholistic picture of the immigrant experience and how poorly American culture treats and exploits its immigrants. It’s not an easy read but an important one. The prostitution was actually a more difficult storyline imo than the meat packing.
You’re just finding this out?
Capitalism is the right for individuals to own property and the right for individuals to trade property.
Death is preferable to surrendering either of those liberties.
Next you’re going to tell me that Moby-Dick wasn’t about whaling.
I love and hate that book. I wish it wasn’t socialist propaganda, but I understand the value of explaining the impossible situation immigrants faced in the industrial revolution.
It is a work of fiction. The author can put in it whatever he wants and portray whoever he wants however he wants.
I wouldn’t tell people they must read Ayn Rand to understand how good capitalism is anymore than i would tell somebody to read this book to see how bad it is.
All works of fiction used to show an injustice towards a social or economic issue is essentially going to be a strawman.
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Seriously? Thanks for the info. I, too, had thought it was about meatpacking.
There’s something terribly wrong if The Jungle is too difficult for the average high school student.
This is a great but sad read and it still does one thing really well, making us take a closer look at the world around us and how we still need to become better as a whole. In the book the man is constantly trying to find a place where he is treated fairly and ends up being destroyed by the society around him, but in the end he just ends up following another group that says they have the best way. My advise, find your own truth, be kind to others, and love while you have the chance as life is short and often unkind so deliver the kindness to others that you might not have been given.
I actually teach this in my senior high school class and it’s interesting watching them figure it out.
A good history teacher, like most of my colleagues, tell what Sinclair’s intent was. However as many acknowledge here the actual historical effects were indeed reforms/government regulation of consumer goods and not the full socialist upheaval Sinclair hoped for.
My school went into the real inns and outs of the book but I had a passionate English teacher
Holy shit I’ve never agreed more with such a poorly written narrative. My friend please use paragraphs in the future. This was atrocious.
Idk i remember it being framed the way you describe in my history class. There were excerpts that we read, so that also suggested the entire book wasn’t just about that.
I didn’t know people thought it was about meat packing
We had to read this is high school and at the time the thing that made me the most mad was how they get ripped off at the wedding by the beer man who only fills the keg halfway and charges them for a full one.
King Coal was a better book in terms of getting to the point about exploitation of labor, but since it didn’t gross people out, it never got the attention it deserved. We never were required to read The Jungle, but our texts did highlight that the intention was to improve workers rights but instead people focused on the nastiness of meatpacking, but it was a passing mention at best, and I don’t even think people remember it.
I ended up reading both King Coal and The Jungle for my high school project on industrial exploitation of workers (including the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire). King Coal is hokey, and it ends on a slightly more hopeful note.
I don’t think anyone is trying to obfuscate it, readers at the time were more concerned with how horrible the places that made their food were than the plight of the workers
I’m from Illinois and in my Illinois History class in 9th grade we studied this book (didn’t read through completely though) and I think my teacher did a good job of explaining the themes of the book to us. However, I don’t remember ever discussing it in a general history class. What’s more surprising to me was that Illinois History was an elective class so only like 6 people took it. But my teacher was also the school librarian and he loved discussing books, so I learned a lot about literature in his classes too!
But it is true that the impact of the book was largely related to food and meat packing.
That’s how I felt. Thought it was about meat packing, got to the end and realized it’s the long form of the communist manifesto
Why couldn’t it be read by most high schoolers? It’s definitely worded simply enough to understand and when I was in high school it was part of the recommended reading list for AP English.
I read it in my twenties, and the Socialist Tent Revival in the last chapter gave me the heebie-jeebies. It was pretty disturbing seeing echoes of the religions that later abused my family and heaped scorn on me, spreading into Sinclair’s leftist politics. Very American in the worst sense of the word.
While I could see the obvious push toward socialism in this book I honestly thought it was pretty thought provoking on how capitalism could be improved at the time. It’s been over 10 years since I read it however and not much of it stayed with me.
I vaguely remember the meatpacking part. The parts about the house they worked so hard for is the part that has stayed in my memory.
Classics are always about something more. Or else these wouldn’t be required readings in school.
“I aimed for their hearts and hit them in their stomachs”
-Upton Sinclair
“I aimed for America’s heart and I hit them in the stomach,” Sinclair said in an interview when asked about its influence in passing the Pure Food Act. We can thank him for federal food inspectors.
I cried buckets reading this book.
i’ll probably get downvoted for an unpopular opinion but i find all of upton sinclair’s writing very tedious and boring. a lot of it is very obvious, in-your-face symbolism that’s credited as being imaginative by tons of people and i just don’t feel the same way,
It is also, a look into the culture of the time, a small picture of how people lived. The throngs of people coming to America, the struggles they had, their determination to assimilate and fit in. The deceptive practices of not only foreign people, but of the companies in using men women and children for many hours a day without regard for workers well being or health.
There are many themes throughout this book. So many similarities of that time and some of the things we are experiencing now. I have read it many times ,and am fascinated with it.
Really? Because I heard that Sinclair guy was packing meat.
America is terrified of Socialism. So even when the book is obviously about the exploitation of capitalism, we have to pretend it isn’t.
When I was learning about this in college I was flabbergasted to find that the true intent was empowering workers and exposing the horrific conditions of the labor force and instead all america got out of it was eww nasty meat packing
It was a great book, very easy read !
The book was not about meat packing but there was so much in there about the horrors of the packing business that it lead to the Pure Food and Drug Administration. Yes, it is about the horrors of unfettered capitalism, but it’s impact on the pure food and drug legislation is not misleading. However, I wonder how many teachers talk about the book and have actually read it.