The Meatpacking Industry In Upton Sinclair's The Jungle

Imagine a place where there is no FDA and no control on what goes into food. A place where people think they are eating sausage but, in actuality, they are eating feces! This “place” was America in 1906 and the years before. For years and years, ordinary citizens had no idea of the horrors that happened behind the scenes of the meatpacking industry. That was until “The Jungle” by Upton Sinclair. This book unmasked the monstrosity that was the meatpacking industry and impacted audiences like no other book has. Sinclair used graphic depictions such as dead rats being put in the food and spoiled meat still being used to impact the audience and achieve his purpose. One of the disgusting facts that Sinclair mentioned about the meatpacking industry was that they used very old, bacteria-infested meat sometimes. Sinclair wrote, “For it was the custom, as they found, whenever meat was so spoiled that it could not be used for anything else, either to can it or else to chop it up into sausage.” This quote obviously makes an impression on the readers because this is absolutely disgusting! It makes the audience lose trust in the meatpacking industry, and it makes them worry about their health. Sinclair described some of
This simply is not true because readers were so disturbed by this text that they complained to the government. They wanted to make sure the food that is sold in stores were properly handled and had minimal health risk, so the government created the FDA. The reason people did not care that this was a fiction was because of the language Sinclair used. He said, “Jonas had told them…” and “This is no fairy story and no joke…” These are ethos used at their finest. This gives Sinclair credibility and makes the audience believe what he is saying. His purpose was to show that the meatpacking industry was a repugnant corporation. He clearly achieved his