Wednesday, October 05, 2011

The Jungle

I had managed to avoid reading the Jungle through school. However, I had read plenty about it, about how it was an example of muckraking journalism that exposed the horrible conditions in meat-packing plants and the vile filth that has being passed off as meat. However, the actual novel was much different. Compared to modern "food" literature, like Fast Food Nation, this novel is rather tame. We hear about "sick" animals being passed off as meat, and second hand stories of workers becoming part of animal products. Now we have mad-cow diseased, E. coli and Salmonella, along with horrid conditions for immigrant laborers in the food-production industries. Hmm.. Guess things haven't changed much. But, at least the children of the jungle immigrants can now get fat at McDonalds while toiling in light-service jobs. The main focus was the struggle of an immigrant man in an oppressive system. He tries honest labor. His wife and child die. He tries the freedom of hoboing around the country. He tries being a party hack and a criminal. He even tries being a strike-breaker. No matter how much success he has, he is eventually beaten down. Finally, he stumbles in to a socialist meeting and finds his nirvana. This would make a nice pro-socialist ending, but the novel keeps going and rambles on and on about socialist ideology. And, then, socialism doesn't seem that good after all. Oops, maybe it would have been best to stop when ahead. The first part of the novel is fairly believable. However, as the novel goes on, the coincidences and chance happenings greatly stretch the limits of credibility. (He just happens to run in to a rich, drunk boy who invites him to dinner and gives him $100? And he runs in to a "budy" in prison that is willing to lead him on a life of crime?) With just a few of the events in story, it would have remained within the realm of the possible. But with so many, it strains the imagination.

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