The Jungle | Social Concerns
Upton Sinclair's overwhelming concern was the betterment of society; art was little more than a sometimes useful tool in the work of improving conditions among the working classes. The Jungle was first conceived as an analogy between the wage slavery imposed on workers and the slavery earlier imposed on blacks. The stockyards of Chicago were selected as an ideal example of the brutality that capitalism allows the privileged to inflict on the poor. Sinclair painstakingly researched all his works; for The Jungle, he spent two months in and around Chicago's packing houses....
[The entire page is 639 words long]
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