“The whip that drives [the modern slave – the factory, sweatshop slave] cannot be either seen nor heard... This slave is never chased by bloodhounds. , he is not torn to pieces by picturesque villains, nor does he die in the ecstasies of religious faith. His religion is but another trap of his oppressors and the bitterest of his misfortunes; the dogs that chase him are sick and accidental, and the villain who kills him is only the pay of the moment. “Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on 'Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned'? Get the original essay In his evocative expose detailing the evils of Chicago's meat industry, The Jungle, Upton Sinclair makes a blistering indictment of wage slavery. According to Sinclair, the Beef Trust ruthlessly exploited workers, subjecting them to a grueling fate worse than that of chattel slaves. Constrained by simple survival and with no hope of making a profit, industrial age workers had no choice but to wait in line for months praying to be selected to work in one of the dirty, overcrowded areas that filled Chicago's stockyard district. After being chosen as one of the "lucky few" to obtain employment, workers worked under the lowest working conditions for wages that could barely support a single person, let alone a family. whole. Despite being deprived of all human rights and driven like slaves, workers could never be assured that their jobs or sub-minimum wages were protected. Sinclair argues that American capitalist industrialization promotes a legal form of slavery in which the working class is forced into intolerable and inhumane working conditions simply to survive. He builds his indictment against wage labor through his protagonist's rude awakening of the cruel system, his frequent analogies between workers and animals and the packing district with a large machine, as well as by providing a litany of labor practices unfair practices that kept the trusts in place. business.The novel tells the story of a Lithuanian immigrant worker named Jurgis, who has recently moved to the construction sites of Chicago with high hopes of prosperity in this land of opportunity. Jurgis's view on relative prosperity quickly changes when the guests at his wedding defy customary giving to the bride and groom because they cannot part with their hard-earned wages on which they depend for survival. He said: “There are able-bodied men working from early morning until late at night, in freezing cellars with a quarter of an inch of water on the floor. . . who can't make three hundred dollars a year? There are little children here. . . who can barely see the top of the workbenches. . .who don't make half of the three hundred dollars a year, and maybe not even a third. . . Little by little, these poor people have abandoned everything else, but to this they cling with all the power of their soul. » Jurgis's once optimistic outlook on life in America quickly turns to despair as he begins to understand Jurgis's plight. of work. He notes early on that he must never be a minute late for work, because he will have "half a day's pay taken away", and that he will never be more than a minute late, otherwise he will “tend to find his brass check turned toward the wall, which will send him to join the hungry crowd that waits at the gates every morning.” . .” Sinclair makes it clear that the workers have neitherrights or stable wages because employment opportunities are very limited, thus giving carte blanche to tyrannical bosses to mistreat and abuse their slave workers. The working class had to accept this fate in order to survive. Sinclair notes: "Such were the cruel conditions under which their lives were possible: they could never have nor expect a single moment's respite from their worry, a single moment during which they would not be haunted by thoughts of death. 'money... This in truth. did not live; it barely existed... They were ready to work all the time, and they couldn't do it any longer. When people do their best, they should be able to stay alive. Working in the stockyards, Sinclair often draws parallels equating workers to animals. He addresses those who challenged the plight of workers and the cause of unions, claiming that workers were trying to "restrict the productive capacity of factories." Sinclair responds by saying that no one really understands the unions' message; the “newspaper editors, statesmen, and presidents of employers’ associations and universities” failed to understand that “what the unions were trying to do was stop the killings.” He goes on to explain: “They massacred the men up there just as they massacred the cattle; they crushed their bodies and souls and turned them into dollars and cents. » Sinclair viewed the Packing District as a machine whose workers were replaceable, replaceable parts. He describes Jurgis watching the men work on the killing floor, "marveling at their speed and power as if they had been marvelous machines"; Sinclair then notes: "somehow it never occurred to think of the flesh and blood side of the thing", the workers were not considered human. This may be why bosses exploit them in unacceptable ways. Men were no more rewarded for their continued service in the industry than for their hard and diligent work. Sinclair says, “The man who minded his own business and did his job – why they would speed him up until he was exhausted, and then they would just throw him in the gutter. » Sinclair reiterates this point when he asserts that winter served as a mechanism to filter out the weak; he said: “All year long they had served as cogs in the great packing machine, and now it was time to renovate the machine. " This suggests Sinclair's view that the capitalist industrial society that revolved around these big business trusts was primarily concerned with productivity and little, if at all, concerned with the plight of the workers they viewed as workers. superfluous elements of the production chain. the condemnation of wage slavery came in the form of a detailed catalog of depraved labor practices interwoven throughout the narrative. He attacks child labor when he states that “three-quarters of children under the age of fifteen now work to earn their living in this glorious land of freedom.” Sinclair then vividly describes the plight of the elderly through the brutally descriptive account of an old man whose feet were burned almost to the bone by the residual acid on the floor of his workplace. Sinclair also spends much of his novel describing the horrible working conditions of each factory, including the unheated slaughter floors. He said, “On the killing floor you could easily freeze. . . You were likely to be covered in blood, and it would freeze completely. Its graphic descriptions constitute the tool for, 2003