Reading Between The Lines: Chasing the American Dream
The American Dream is a
proverb that, despite being overused,
continues to carry important
insight on the attitudes and aspirations
of a nation of people. And
never was that dream harder to
achieve than being an immigrant
of the early 1900s. Upton
Sinclair's The Jungle thrusts the
reader into the dark and grimy
slums of Chicago's Packingtown
in the early 20th century. It's a
world where livelihood is synonymous
with exploitation, where the
only rule is to do anything between
cheating and betrayal goes as long
as it keeps you and your family
afloat. The book shocked the people
of the time, and will shock
those with historical interests as to
exactly how much squalor the
average meat packer lived in.
The Jungle still carries some infamy to this day, as the book whose description of the filthy conditions that the average meat packers carried which prompted the creation of the Clean Food Act in the United States. But rather than being a Fast Food Nation type journalistic exposé on packing plants, The Jungle is more a personal story about a particular impoverished immigrant family from Lithuania, who end up as just one of the many cogs that run the brutal slaughterhouse machine. Lured into America with the prospect of a better life, Jurgis, his fiancée, and the rest of their extended family relocate from Europe, aspiring for something better than peasanthood.
Thus begins their spiraling plunge into near-indentured servitude. Being immigrants, they are treated as such, tricked and cheated into poor decisions, being forced to invest in substandard homing, buying adulterated and near-poisonous food. The feeling of despair hangs throughout, with Sinclair showing just how deep a hapless cesspit poverty is to swim out of. Living in a time when workers are treated with less dignity than the average farm animal, The Jungle shows the very worst of humanity that manifests through the sheer desperation of staying alive. Worker spies are hired by the packers to infiltrate every aspect of their employees working lives, even including the unions, supposedly their last bastion of refuge against inhumane treatment. Being injured on the job means becoming an unemployed invalid since the mere thought of sick leave is laughable. To be blunt, you'll witness how screwed they get on every turn.
The infamous tale of the man falling into a machine and being processed into lard is probably the least disgusting story in the book. You don't need much of an imagination to feel revolted at the thought of burned hair and fat from factory runoff being reused as lard, or the meat of tubercolodical pigs being fashioned into sausage that strikes children dead with sickness. It isn't all just told through pure anecdote, either. Sinclair cites the various bills and laws of the era that purport themselves as promoting a standard of quality in food, but in reality, more or less get shoved aside by corrupt politicians and their meatpacker financers. It mirrors the corruption of the modern lobbying standard, abut to a much more horrifyingly out of control scale.
The lessons within The Jungle still carry weight today, both as a story with historical context and a sordid reminder of what poverty can do to well-meaning people. At the very least, it will make you feel a lot more fortunate for the safety nets we have today. Just don't eat anything while you read this book.
Reading Between The Lines explores books that you may have missed out on that are worth your while. If you have a book to suggest, email Eshaan at e_gupta@fanshaweonline.ca.
The Jungle still carries some infamy to this day, as the book whose description of the filthy conditions that the average meat packers carried which prompted the creation of the Clean Food Act in the United States. But rather than being a Fast Food Nation type journalistic exposé on packing plants, The Jungle is more a personal story about a particular impoverished immigrant family from Lithuania, who end up as just one of the many cogs that run the brutal slaughterhouse machine. Lured into America with the prospect of a better life, Jurgis, his fiancée, and the rest of their extended family relocate from Europe, aspiring for something better than peasanthood.
Thus begins their spiraling plunge into near-indentured servitude. Being immigrants, they are treated as such, tricked and cheated into poor decisions, being forced to invest in substandard homing, buying adulterated and near-poisonous food. The feeling of despair hangs throughout, with Sinclair showing just how deep a hapless cesspit poverty is to swim out of. Living in a time when workers are treated with less dignity than the average farm animal, The Jungle shows the very worst of humanity that manifests through the sheer desperation of staying alive. Worker spies are hired by the packers to infiltrate every aspect of their employees working lives, even including the unions, supposedly their last bastion of refuge against inhumane treatment. Being injured on the job means becoming an unemployed invalid since the mere thought of sick leave is laughable. To be blunt, you'll witness how screwed they get on every turn.
The infamous tale of the man falling into a machine and being processed into lard is probably the least disgusting story in the book. You don't need much of an imagination to feel revolted at the thought of burned hair and fat from factory runoff being reused as lard, or the meat of tubercolodical pigs being fashioned into sausage that strikes children dead with sickness. It isn't all just told through pure anecdote, either. Sinclair cites the various bills and laws of the era that purport themselves as promoting a standard of quality in food, but in reality, more or less get shoved aside by corrupt politicians and their meatpacker financers. It mirrors the corruption of the modern lobbying standard, abut to a much more horrifyingly out of control scale.
The lessons within The Jungle still carry weight today, both as a story with historical context and a sordid reminder of what poverty can do to well-meaning people. At the very least, it will make you feel a lot more fortunate for the safety nets we have today. Just don't eat anything while you read this book.
Reading Between The Lines explores books that you may have missed out on that are worth your while. If you have a book to suggest, email Eshaan at e_gupta@fanshaweonline.ca.
