The Jungle question

It captures a time, place and struggle that every American citizen should be aware of. The gross meat thing gets all the attention, but the book is really about the suffering and exploitation of humans, not animals. It's an American classic. Keep reading.

Just read this novel a few months ago (reviewed it here too) in preparation for my college using Fast Food Nation as our Common Book. I personally loved the story of the man Jurgis and was much more interested in his life than the meat packing stuff. Well worth your time to get through it.

The meat packing plant side of the book is certainly interesting (and horrifying), but as others have said, the main focus of the book is on how tough life is for Jurgis and his family. If anything, I kept reading just to see what else would happen to the poor guy.

The Jungle makes salient points about the unsanitary, precarious and corrupt nature of the beginnings of one of America’s industries in one of our most corrupt cities, Chicago. Contradicting itself, The Jungle provides examples of immigrants bringing that same industry to its knees by refusing conditions others seemed compelled to accept.

The Jungle also makes a good case for governmental regulation, while unintentionally providing many contradictory examples of regulatory corruption. The author’s solution? The endless dictatorial corruption of socialism.

Exploited, the main character turns to crime and participation in regulatory corruption, and fails to understand the opportunities provided him in the peace and sanity of rural America.

Anyone can drone on endlessly about the ugliness in any human or human endeavor. It takes a good writer to strike a balanced description of human frailty so the reader wants to turn the page. I got so I did not.

I enjoyed it, but I disliked the way that the author turns the entire book into a socialist pamphlet. Although I do find it a bit hard to blame Upton, given the current conditions.

Even if Chicago had gone to the Socialist party, it wouldn't have improved the plight of the worker. Big industry would have just gone elsewhere.

The only motivation there is to read this book is if you want to understand why we have regulations in today's society.

I simply flew through the boring parts/the gross parts to find out what happens to Jurgis and his family. Believe me, its on the Barnes and Noble Classics list for a reason. Keep reading!

Do you think that the ending of this book is worth the time it takes to read through the vulgar parts?

Although some parts of the novel are gruesome and disgusting, they are there for a reason. When reading these detailed parts, just keep in mind the big picture of the story and what the workers had to go through. The novel was written to make known these cruelties, so just remember that you are helping the powerless workers in their fight for safe working conditions.