The Jungle ~ Upton Sinclair

Three out of Five (minus one for tearing down the whole country)

This is my classical for January. I’m aware that most people read it in high school, but they never assigned it to me and I was rather excited to finally read it.

The back cover:

One of the most powerful, provocative, and enduring novels to expose social injustice ever published in the United States. This dramatic and deeply affecting story documents the brutal conditions in the Chicago stockyards at the turn of the century, bringing into sharp moral focus the appalling odds against which immigrants and other working people struggled for their share of the American dream.

This is a very powerful story. The life of Jurgis (the main character) is one that is truly heartbreaking. The struggles of moving to a country where one does not speak the language (figuratively and literally) is brought forth in glaring realism.  His conversion to Socialism is believable.  I ache to think that people that are seeking would find something other than God.

Food for thought:

At one point, Jurgis is freezing and penniless. He resorts to begging. As soon as he is given money he runs into the nearest saloon. “His victim, seeing him do this, would go away, vowing that he would never give a cent to a beggar again. The victim never paused to ask where else Jurgis could have gone under the circumstances… at the saloon Jurgis could not only get more food… but a drink in the bargain to warm him up.” This really gave me pause. How many times have I said, and heard from others, “I don’t want to give them money for booze?” Why did it never occur to me how much ‘warmer’ booze makes you feel, or really, why it’s any of my business? I mean, the purpose is to help and if this the help that they seek and I genuinely just want to help, then why do I care how they spend it?

At another point, Sinclair refers to Jurgis as “one of the new ‘American heroes’” and puts him on par with “those of the martyrs of Lexington and Valley Forge.” This really bothers me, as at this point Jurgis becomes a scab. I know that there is sarcasm there, there must be, but it really bothers me that he would compare a scab to Washington.

This is a novel written, from what I can gather, to bring people to Socialism.  Sinclair originally wrote it for a Socialist newspaper as a serial and changed it a bit, it's much longer, in order to publish it as a novel.  Having found this out after reading it (I don't read the introductions until I'm done with the story) made sense of much that had bothered me.  Using Chicago to write a commentary on the entire country, seems to be the only way once could pander to their socialist ideals.  Even Jurgis, while in the bread basket, lived well and met with good people.  That is really skimped over in the novel, but it's there.  The breadbasket has no need of socialism, the folks are social enough.