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.