Kirsten Huffer on The Jungle

Initially, I was torn between reading Rocket Boys and The Jungle, but eventually I decided upon the latter. When my seventh grade American history class was studying the progressive era, my teacher read a selection of rather disturbing passages from Upton Sinclair's muckraking masterpiece. My morbid curiosity piqued, I began to read it, but abandoned it about a quarter of the way through in favor of a lighter, less depressing (and less disgusting!) book; this summer, however, I was determined to finish it.
This time I did manage to read the entire novel, although I still found it depressing to read the series of tragedies that befell Jurgis Rudkus and his family of Lithuanian immigrants in the deathtrap of Chicago's stockyards. Even more disheartening was the impact that Chicago's corruption had on the morals of Jurgis and his relatives. Toward the end of the book, I became rather irritated by the lengthy socialist rants. Interestingly enough, these appeals for socialism and Sinclair's protests against oppression and "wage slavery" had significantly less impact on the American public and Theodore Roosevelt than the dozen or so pages early on describing the horrors of the meatpacking industry. Apparently, it is easier to reach a man's stomach than his heart!
While it would be untrue for me to say that I enjoyed The Jungle, I can honestly say that I appreciated it because of the major reforms it sparked. Thanks to this book, I do not need to consider becoming a vegetarian.