The classification of Upton Sinclair's novel The Jungle is ambivalent as it contains elements characteristic of both fiction and historical writing. These elements, including imaginary events which define fiction or literature, and the real events...

The lash which drives [the modern slave—the slave of the factory, the sweat shop] cannot be either be seen or heard . . . This slave is never hunted by bloodhounds; he is not beaten to pieces by picturesque villains, nor does he die in ecstasies...

During the industrial revolution in America, many immigrant families migrated from countries in Europe and Asia in hope of finding a better life in the land of the free. However, when they arrived by the boatload, they were met with poor working...

Charles Darwin put forward the idea that nature showed prevalent consistency in a pattern of “survival of the fittest.” In the classic realist novel The Jungle, this concept is also present throughout the entirety of the story. The narrative of a...

The Jungle by Upton Sinclair and Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser are two extremely different books about the same topic: the American food industry. Paired excerpts explore the behind-the-scenes work that goes into processed food and how the...

Throughout history, there have been books that shocked the world and turned many ideals upside down. Upton Sinclair’s 1906 novel, The Jungle, was one of these cases. It sent a shiver down typical Americans’ spines when the author described the...

Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle, a novel that follows a penniless Lithuanian family surviving in Packingtown, the meat-packing district of Chicago, underlines the stark gender divide in destitute environments. Ona Lukoszaite, a meek and frail...

There are a million people, men and women and children, who share the curse of the wage-slave; who toil every hour they can stand and see, for just enough to keep them alive; who are condemned till the end of their days to monotony and weariness,...