May 30, 2011

Readers Corner - The Jungle

The Jungle - Upton Sinclair


   About thirty years passed since I read some of Upton Sinclair great novels The Jungle, Oil, King Coal and The Flivver King. My Aunt had passed away and her son told me to come over and pick all her books. Going through them I came across two books: The Jungle and Oil, which were directed to my to read tasks. I started reading The Jungle Upton Sinclair looks to be a socialist fighting for the workers rights. Nowadays we are again in a need for leaders like him, cause once again the middle class people start to smell the shit those big shots are spreading around us. Remember, our savings are within the big robbers which are always hungry and greedy.    
    The story tells us about the daily struggles in surviving in America.  Every day, workers have to fight to keep their jobs. If a strong worker falls, another wage-slave will take over his place. Jurvis and his family immigrated from Lithuania, and are now working for the meat industry of Chicago. He was young and strong and when the union man asked him to join the socialist movement he laughed. But very soon he himself slip down the hill. and then he became very fast part of the socialism party of the states. His story and the details of the work condition of the food industry brought a very huge change at the first decade of the twenty century.

So all of you hear the Sixteen Ton song which summarized the faith of the wage slaves, which work hard for the company, but they must spent all their income in the company stores.
   The Jungle was the first of many other novels fighting for the workers rights. John Steinbeck in his great novel The Grapes of Wrath used also that narrative. The companies were greedy and were treating the workers like slaves without any rights, they were fighting the workers strikes by brutal methods. So don't fell asleep or they will push us back to those dark days.
Now a days you may read The Jungle for free here 


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