The Jungle - Sinclair, Upton

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Résumé :
The Jungle is Upton Sinclair's scathing indictment of the meat packing industry in the early 1900s. This novel, which follows the Lithuanian immigrant Jurgis Rudkus and his family in their doomed struggle for survival in the brutal world of the Chicago stock yards, became a bestseller and changed history. The exposure of the appalling labor conditions and the unsanitary practices led to a public outcry, and eventually reforms, including the Meat Packing Act. At the time, fellow writer Jack London called The Jungle the Uncle Tom's Cabin of wage slavery. Eric Schlosser's more recent assessment is ''The Jungle . . . captures something essential about the American immigrant experience and the workings of a brutal industrial system. It transcends the specifics of one historical era and sadly remains relevant to our own.'' Sinclair's novel is now read both as literature and as history. Upton Sinclair, journalist, novelist, political activist and gubernatorial candidate, has featured on the cover of Time magazine and is remembered for The Jungle and the wry saying It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.

Biographie:
Upton Beall Sinclair Jr. (1878 - 1968) was an American writer who wrote nearly 100 books and other works in several genres. Sinclair's work was well-known and popular in the first half of the twentieth century and he won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1943. In 1906, Sinclair acquired particular fame for his classic muckraking novel The Jungle, which exposed conditions in the U.S. meat packing industry, causing a public uproar that contributed in part to the passage a few months later of the 1906 Pure Food and Drug Act and the Meat Inspection Act. In 1919, he published The Brass Check, a muckraking expos? of American journalism that publicized the issue of yellow journalism and the limitations of the free press in the United States. Four years after publication of The Brass Check, the first code of ethics for journalists was created. Time magazine called him a man with every gift except humor and silence. He is also well remembered for the line: It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it. He used this line in speeches and the book about his campaign for governor as a way to explain why the editors and publishers of the major newspapers in California would not treat seriously his proposals for old age pensions and other progressive reforms. Upton Sinclair was considered a force of nature -- being not only prolific in his novel-writing but a political force of decided influence. Unknown to many of his admirers, Sinclair also wrote adventure fiction, under the name Ensign Clark Fitch, U.S.N.

Sommaire:
Upton Sinclair (1878-1968) was a prolific American author and social reformer best known for his muckraking novel The Jungle (1906), which exposed the harsh conditions and unsanitary practices in the U.S. meatpacking industry. This groundbreaking work led to significant public outcry and contributed to the passage of the Pure Food and Drug Act and the Meat Inspection Act in 1906. Throughout his career, Sinclair wrote over 90 books, covering a wide range of genres including novels, plays, essays, and non-fiction works. Many of his writings addressed social issues such as labor rights, poverty, political corruption, and the need for reform. He was associated with the Progressive Movement and ran for political office several times, including a notable campaign for Governor of California in 1934 under the platform of the End Poverty in California (EPIC) movement. Sinclair's other notable works include Oil! (1927), which inspired the film There Will Be Blood (2007), and The Brass Check (1919), which critiqued the American press and led to the establishment of the first code of ethics for journalists. Upton Sinclair's commitment to social justice and reform left a lasting impact on American literature and society....