Syntax and Author's Purpose

“In the corner was a blanket, with a form half showing beneath it; and beside it lay Elzbieta, whether crying or in a faint Jurgis could not tell. Marija was pacing the room, screaming and wringing her hands. He clenched his hands together yet, and his voice...”(238).

Upon the death of Jurgis’s only child, Antannas, the author, Upton Sinclair was able to portray the tension, and grief that the living conditions of Chicago have caused. By beginning the sentence with the main clause, “In the corner was a blanket...” readers are immediately drawn toward the subject, dead Antannas under the blanket. By focusing on the blanket, Sinclair reveals the direct and physical result of the effects of living in Packingtown. Sinclair follows this dramatic placement of both the dead child and main clause with feelings of tension described by the movement of the woman of the house, though the use of parallel verbs. “Pacing,” “screaming,” “crying” and “wringing” all show the connection between the actions. Because all actions seem to be occurring simultaneously, Sinclair is able to create the image of anxious woman, trembling with emotions, unable to keep themselves still. Though instances such as theses, Sinclair is able to reveal the dramatic tragedy of the Rudkus family in order to capture his readers and intimately push for municipal reform.

"These people could not be shown to the visitor, for the odour of a fertilizer-man would scare any ordinary visitor at a hundred yards; and as for the other man, who worked in tank rooms full of steam, and in some of which there were open vats near the level of the floor, their peculiar trouble was they fell into the vats; and when they were fished out, there was never enough of them left to be worth exhibiting-- sometimes they would be overlooked for days, till all but the bones of them had gone out to the world as Durham's Pure Leave Lard!" (111)

Another one of Sinclair's most prominent styles of syntax exhibited in his novel, are long descriptive sentences. In particular, Sinclair often models a style of processes going around in the factory, which include shocking yet factual details to capture his reader. Sinclair’s primary focus was to reveal the problems of the meat packing industry, and by including details such as steamed human within the lard while describing the lard making process all into one sentence, the reader’s disturbance level is increased, for the steamed human becomes part of the process. Though Sinclair's wording, he was able to gain the focus of American citizens , as well as government officials, to push for reform.

Personal Review

Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle was one of my favorite books I have read this year. Though the life of the protagonist of the novel, Jurgis, was tragic, this is what drew me into the novel. Though Jurgis initially travels to American in hopes of fulfilling the American Dream, he is constantly cheated by boss rule, the judicial system, and shopkeepers. Jurgis is left to watch his family members die from strenuous work at the factory, and unhealthy living conditions at home. The descriptive sentences of Packingtown, a district in Chicago where "the swarms of flies hung about the scene, literally blacking the air, and the strange, fetid odour which assailed one’s nostrils, of all the dead things in the universe.” captured my curiosity and kept me reading, wanting to discover the fate of the family living in such conditions. Yet such unhealthy and corrupt conditions described by Sinclair allow the reader to only conclude one fate for Jurgis and his family, eventual bankruptcy and death. This form of dramatic irony, similar to that of the Three Theban Plays by Sophocles, also supported my interest in the novel. I enjoyed the plot of the story though at times it was very sad, and heartbreaking such as when Jurgis’s only son dies shortly after he has recovered from the traumatizing death of his wife, Ona. Jurgis’s depression leads him into heavy drinking, as well the underground crime scene. There, much of the corruption going on in Packingtown is explained. Because this instance was near the end of the novel, I would like to read it again, for the scandals that occurred at the beginning of the novel would have more provided more clarification. Overall, Upton Sinclair's plot was captivating and the subject was very interesting, allowing me to conclude it was my favorite of the era books :D !

Text to World

Upton Sinclair, a famous muckraker of the early twentieth century, was most notable for his novel, The Jungle. In his descriptive exposé of the meat packing industry, Sinclair’s novel was able to catch the attention of the American public and the United States government, and promote legislation to set higher standards for inspection the food industry. By employing a series of rhetorical questions the legitimacy of the food products the family purchase is questioned. For example “How could they find out that their tea and coffee, their sugar and flour, had been doctored; that their canned peas had been coloured with copper salts, and their fruit jams with aniline dyes?”(84). Such questions as well as the addition of details such as “handfuls of the dried dug of rats” piled on top of meat ready to be shipped to consumers portrayed in the novel shocked the public and are key elements that pushed for Theodore Roosevelt to pass the Pure Food and Drug Act and the Meat Inspection Act in 1906 (151). Both acts significantly cleaned up the meat packing industry, by providing tests on all foods processed for human consumption. Historians agree that Upton Sinclair’s novel is responsible for the change in the way food is processed, as well as the rise health improvements of the Americans associated with the safer foods available for consumption.

Diction on Authors Tone

“Horrible sinking of the heart”(76)

“Victims of a relentless fat, cornered, trapped, in the grip of destruction. (76)

“River of death” (36)

“Black paralyzing awful horror” (277)

“Sickening stench” (40)

“Grandmother Majauskiene had lived in the midst of misfortune so long that it had become to be her element, and she talked about starvation, sickness and death as other people might about weddings and holidays”(72)

The constant struggle depicted though Sinclair’s negative diction exercised while the family is both hard at work, or at home creates a poignant attitude toward the life in Chicago. While the family faces contestant struggles trying to make ends meet they are bombarded with “starvation, sickness and death.” Just as how Grandmother Majauskiene’s “misfortune had become her element” the same effect can be exhibited among the Rudkus family as well as Sinclair’s diction. Connotation wise, “misfortune” implies a state of tragedy and time for mourning while “holidays” usually indicate a time of joy and celebration. These polar opposites are diluted as the novel continues. It becomes a casual instance when the workers, “found [Stanislovas] killed and eaten him nearly all up” (326). The lack of any dramatic words involved in the death of one of the youngest boys left in the family signals a sense of acceptance towards the forces of the city. Sinclair’s shifts in word choice as well as his tone confirm this idea of the erosion of feelings of a miserable state to an unemotional regularity.

Rhetorical Strategies

Anadiplosis, Personification, and Asyndeton: “And every hour his soul grew blacker, every hour he dreamed new dreams of vengeance, of defiance, of raging, frenzied hate.”(180)

Repetition: “hour after hour, day after day, year after year, it was fated that he should stand upon a certain square foot of floor from seven in the morning until noon, and again from half past twelve till half past five, making new a motion and thinking never a thought…” (79)

Simile: “The blood was pounding in his brain, like an engine’s throbbing; there was a frightful pain in the top of his skull, and he could hardly control his hands.”(145)

Repetition and Simile: “It was sickening, like a nightmare, in which suddenly something gives way beneath you, and you feel yourself sinking, sinking down into bottomless abysses”(76)

Trope: “They would wrap up in all they owned, but they could not wrap up against exhaustion.”(88)

Upton Sinclair’s style is characterized by frequent similes, and metaphors to expand on the imagery used to capture his readers. The use of figurative speach provides comparisons to everyday thoughts or ideas, for the many readers who are unfamiliar with the conditions of the workers of Packingtown. For example, when Jurgis Is hard at work at the fertilizer mills the horrid stench is gives him a pounding headache “like an engine’s throbbing”(145). This use of simile provides a physical example of heat and the great power of pressure from a machine,constantly pulsating in Jurgis’s head, intensifies one of his many struggles while trying to earn an honest man’s salary.