In the early 1900s, America began to rapidly transform. Many immigrants began moving to the United States in the early 1900s with the hope of living the “American Dream.” However, that glittering, glittering American lifestyle is simply a distant ideal for immigrants living in Packingtown, Chicago's meatpacking neighborhood. Upton Sinclair's The Jungle portrays life through the eyes of a poor factory worker struggling to survive in this cruel and tumultuous environment, where the desire for profit between capitalist meatpacking bosses and criminals makes working-class life an almost unbearable for survival. The novel The Jungle is a hybrid of history, literature and propaganda. Sinclair, a tabloid journalist of the early 1900s, exposed to the nation an industry founded on principles of deception and filth, and offered a new solution to end this problem. The novel and its massive depiction of grotesque and unsanitary conditions provided impetus to the passage of the Pure Food and Drug Act and the Meat Inspection Act (McCage 1) which transformed the American way of life. The Jungle is known for exposing the grotesque and unsanitary conditions that existed in the meatpacking industry; However, the novel's scope goes beyond this issue and reveals the disillusionment of the American dream, the evils of a capitalist system, and a workable plan to end corruption. Upton Sinclair's novel adequately describes how abhorrent and discouraging working conditions were in 1900. . Through the eyes of Jurgis Rudkus, a strong young Lithuanian, and his family, Sinclair is able to show the grotesque and shocking nature of the meatpacking industry in the early 1920s... middle of the paper. .. .3.---. “The Jungle”. Encyclopedia of literary themes. Bloom's literature. Network. November 6, 2013. Kongshaug, Erik. “Upton Sinclair.” American writers. Ed. Jay Parini. Supplement V. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 2000. 275-293. Print.McCage, Crystal. “The Jungle”. Encyclopedia of American Literature: Into the Modern, 1896-1945. Bloom's Literature. Network. November 6, 2013. Mooker, R.N. “Muckraking and Fame: The Jungle.” Modern Critical Interpretations: Upton Sinclair's The Jungle. 1988: np Rpt. in Art for Social Justice: Upton Sinclair's Major Novels. Ed. Harold Bloom. Philadelphia: Chelsea House Publishers, 2006. 78-81. Print.Yoder, Jon A. “The Muckraker.” Upton Sinclair. 1975: np Rpt. in modern critical interpretations: Upton Sinclair's The Jungle. Ed. Harold Bloom. Philadelphia: Chelsea House Publishers, 2002. 3-19. Press.