Is The Jungle Realistic? ...Yes, It Is

 

As I continue to research this topic and read more on The Jungle, I witness a great controversy taking place between the audiences. We inevitably see the impact that the novel made on our society with the quick action that Roosevelt took resulting in the formation of the FDA. However, we also see that some people question the accuracy of Sinclair’s depictions made in the novel. As Lawrence W. Reed states, the novel “was intended to be a polemic- a diatribe, if you will- not a well-researched and dispassionate documentary.” This author argues that Sinclair exaggerates the unsanitary conditions of the meatpacking industries and that he, “relied heavily both on his own imagination and on the hearsay of others.” Reading this article, I am unsure of whether I agree or disagree with Reed because he is correct in the argument that The Jungle is a fictional book. As I have stated before in my last post, Sinclair did create a character and a life modeled loosely after his own. The Rudkus family and the hardships, experiences, and pain they witnessed were a creation of Sinclair’s imagination. However, a point made by Reed is inaccurate based on my research. He stated the Sinclair had not gone to the meatpacking industry, and had not first-hand seen the claims he later made in his novel. The letter that Sinclair sent to president Roosevelt, in an older post, proves this statement to be incorrect when he states, in the letter, “I saw with my own eyes hams, which had been spoiled in pickle, being pumped full of chemicals to destroy the odor. I saw waste ends of smoked beef stored in a barrel~in a cellar, in a condition of filth which I could not describe in a letter… room in which sausage meat was with poisoned rats lying around.”. Therefore, although this author is correct in the aspect of the use of imagination by Sinclair to create the novel, he is incorrect in that Sinclair did, in fact, witness the horrors of meatpacking industries.

Reed also questions why a single novel, conditions only read and not seen, outweighed the the great number of people who have actually gone in the meat packing factories and seen the way it works. As a reader, I am not sure how to answer that myself. This will be a question I will never cease to remember. The fact that so many people saw the factories and did nothing is an act of no explanation. My only assumption would be that the factory’s conditions became the accepted way of living. Overall, it is evident that Lawrence W. Reed is questioning the accuracy of The Jungle, but if anyone reads this article, they must keep in mind that some points are correct, but others can be proven to be wrong.