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Landscape of Evils in Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle

Received: 25 January 2019     Accepted: 12 March 2019     Published: 30 March 2019
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Abstract

In The Jungle, Upton Sinclair delineates the social evils in the early 20th-century America from such aspects as the evils of reification, banality and unscrupulous personality. He discloses the phenomena of reification appearing under the systematic force by highlighting the reification of political-commercial relation, capitalist-worker relation and interpersonal relation, denouncing the social trample on laborers’ basic human rights and dignity from the perspectives of political corruption, politician-businessman collusion and capital monopolization. Moreover, he explores the anti-civilization, anti-socialness and anti-ethics of banality of evils through the revelation of evil-doings of scabs, manual laborers and real estate brokers. Finally, the unscrupulous personality finding expression in jealousy, avarice and lust brings to light the pleasure-seeking evil psyche harmful to social interaction.

Published in International Journal of Literature and Arts (Volume 7, Issue 1)
DOI 10.11648/j.ijla.20190701.15
Page(s) 20-25
Creative Commons

This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, provided the original work is properly cited.

Copyright

Copyright © The Author(s), 2019. Published by Science Publishing Group

Keywords

The Jungle, Upton Sinclair, Evil of Reification, Banality of Evil, Evil of Unscrupulous Personality

References
[1] Coodley, Lauren. Upton Sinclair: California Socialist, Celebrity Intellectual. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 2013, p.56.
[2] Jensen, Carl & Hugh Downs. Stories that Changed America: Muckrakers of the 20th Century. New York: Seven Stories Press, 2017, p.347.
[3] Zhang, Zhen. “A comparative study of The Life and Death Court and The Jungle.” Longjiang Social Sciences 4 (1994): 64-67.
[4] Liang, Yaping. “A Brief Analysis of the Social Impact of Slaughterhouse.” Journal of Huaibei Coal Institute, 1 (1995): 111-112.
[5] Huang, Lihua. “On the Artistic Characteristics of Slaughterhouse.” Lanzhou Academic Journal 5 (2000): 62-63.
[6] Zhu, Bin. “From Slaughterhouse to the Establishment of FDA in the United States.” Wen Wei Bao, 8 August 2011, 15th ed.
[7] Hu, Biyuan. Upton Sinclair’s Fiction Study. Beijing: China Book Publishing House, 2013, p.23.
[8] Qin, Dandandan. “The Value Choice of Migrant Families in Sinclair Slaughterhouse.” Journal of Beijing University of Chemical Technology (Social Science Edition) 2 (2016): 57-62.
[9] Floyd, Kevin. The Reification of Desire: Toward a Queer Marxism. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press,2009, p.145.
[10] Pang, Haonong. “Views of Abolition in Early Black Fiction: A Study of Clotel by W. W. Brown,” Jinan Journal (Philosophy & Social Science Edition) 6 (2013): 26-32.
[11] Laidler, Harry W. “Ten Years of ISS Progress,” The Intercollegiate Socialist, 4.4 (1915): 16-19.
[12] Sinclair, Upton. The Jungle. New York: The American Library of World Literature, 1960, p.12.
[13] Arendt, Hannah. Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil. New York: Penguin, 1964, p.56.
[14] Wang, Nan, et all. “Interpretation of ‘the Evil of Banality’: Analysis of Subsistence Behavior of Human Beings from Pilgrim’s Experiments.” The Guide of Science & Education 7 (2017): 144-145.
[15] Zhang, Junrong. “The Banality of Evil: Ignoring the Obvious Evils.” Social Sciences in China Press 3 December 2014, 4th ed.
[16] Virginia, Clare, ed. The Jungle: an Authoritative Text, Contexts and Backgrounds. New York: Norton, 2003, p.28.
[17] Yu, Ling. “The Enlightenment Dilemma in the Banality of Evil.” Masterpieces Review 21 (2017):168-170.
[18] Harris, Leon. Upton Sinclair: American Rebel. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1975, p.35.
Cite This Article
  • APA Style

    Haonong Pang, Minjie Liu. (2019). Landscape of Evils in Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle. International Journal of Literature and Arts, 7(1), 20-25. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijla.20190701.15

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    ACS Style

    Haonong Pang; Minjie Liu. Landscape of Evils in Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle. Int. J. Lit. Arts 2019, 7(1), 20-25. doi: 10.11648/j.ijla.20190701.15

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    AMA Style

    Haonong Pang, Minjie Liu. Landscape of Evils in Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle. Int J Lit Arts. 2019;7(1):20-25. doi: 10.11648/j.ijla.20190701.15

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  • @article{10.11648/j.ijla.20190701.15,
      author = {Haonong Pang and Minjie Liu},
      title = {Landscape of Evils in Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle},
      journal = {International Journal of Literature and Arts},
      volume = {7},
      number = {1},
      pages = {20-25},
      doi = {10.11648/j.ijla.20190701.15},
      url = {https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijla.20190701.15},
      eprint = {https://article.sciencepublishinggroup.com/pdf/10.11648.j.ijla.20190701.15},
      abstract = {In The Jungle, Upton Sinclair delineates the social evils in the early 20th-century America from such aspects as the evils of reification, banality and unscrupulous personality. He discloses the phenomena of reification appearing under the systematic force by highlighting the reification of political-commercial relation, capitalist-worker relation and interpersonal relation, denouncing the social trample on laborers’ basic human rights and dignity from the perspectives of political corruption, politician-businessman collusion and capital monopolization. Moreover, he explores the anti-civilization, anti-socialness and anti-ethics of banality of evils through the revelation of evil-doings of scabs, manual laborers and real estate brokers. Finally, the unscrupulous personality finding expression in jealousy, avarice and lust brings to light the pleasure-seeking evil psyche harmful to social interaction.},
     year = {2019}
    }
    

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Author Information
  • Centre for Foreign Literature and Culture, Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, Guangzhou, China

  • School of Foreign Languages, Shanghai University, Shanghai, China

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