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The Jungle


            In the early 1900's America was in a time of reform, moving into a new era full of progress and prosperity. The new ability to mass produce things like transportation, housing, and communications brought an increase in supply and contributed to the public's consumption of more goods. Many movements were made towards civil and social rights issues that now challenged the old ways of thinking. The American standards of living also increased during this time, with more people wanting to live a more comfortable lifestyle. To those in other countries this progress was viewed as a life they could only imagine of. In result, vast amounts of immigrants migrated to America in search of this better life. Upton Sinclair, author of the book The Jungle, narrates the actual realities of American life during this time, through the eyes of an immigrant family from Lithuania. Sinclair with intentions of writing the book solely for the purpose of promoting socialistic ideology ended up writing a novel that alarmed the public and forced our government into taking action.
             The Jungle represents America's coming of age. America was built as a capitalistic society where production and distribution are privately owned by individuals or groups and competition for business sets the prices. This mind set made for an attractive facade for immigrants wanting to move to here. However, in actuality capitalism was nothing more then a lack of morals, corruption, and greed. It was a world in which the strong preyed on the weak to get richer and the weak just kept getting poorer. New immigrants to the country, like Jurgis and his family, came with high hopes of wealth and happiness only to find everything but that. They were naive in most situations therefore were an easy target to take advantage of. For example, when Jurgis and his family went to buy their house they were told it would only be $12 a month for six years.


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