Text Connections

The Jungle is a book of extremes and emphasizes everything negative about capitalism in the horrible part of Chicago known as Packingtown. It seems almost like Sinclair was receiving direct orders from Lenin because the book is so one sided in its argument and really shows none of the better sides of capitalism or the negative sides of communism. Because of this it seems like the book is somewhat less well regarded today because it does not address all sides of the argument. Although this was Sinclair’s main reason for writing the novel it had major effects on scaring America into creating new restrictions and regulations on the meatpacking industry, which were important for our industrializing nation. Although The Jungle did not have quite as strong effects as say, The Communist Manifesto, it could be compared to it as a form of making the goals of the manifesto more available for the majority of less educated Americans. Even if the jungle did not achieve its goal of communizing America it did save thousands of lives from death by meat poisoning.