5.04 Upton Sinclair: "The Jungle"

Works




The Red Badge of Courage
Stephen Crane

The Jungle
Upton Sinclair

The Call of The Wild
Jack London

Naturalism is a late19th and early 20th century literary approach that vividly depicted social problems and viewed human beings as helpless victims of larger social and economic forces.

• exposed social problems

• imagined the world as a machine

• regarded their work as that of a scientist

• used realism to relate the individual to society

• recorded life "as is" including poverty, corruption, working conditions, and city slums

• often exposed social problems (for example: problems with the meat-packing industry and labor in Upton Sinclair's novel The Jungle)

• were influenced by Charles Darwin

• viewed individuals as helpless pawns of economic and social forces beyond their control

• associated with bleak, realistic depictions of lower-class life

• denied religion as a motivating force in the world

• imagined the world as a machine, godless and out of control

• included Muckrakers such as Upton Sinclair. Muckrakers were American journalists and novelists (1900 - 1912) whose spotlight on corruption in business and government led to social reform

• flourished as Americans became urbanized