"Things that were quite unspeakable went on there in the packing houses all the time, and were taken for granted by everybody". Sinclair uses this quote to depict how terrible life as an immigrant worker in Chicago's "Packingtown" really was. In his book, The Jungle, Upton Sinclair exposes the corruption of Chicago's stockyards through the eyes of a Lithuanian immigrant named Jurgis. This story was so shocking that it launched a government investigation. The Jungle was one of the few works of art in American literature history to have a substantial and immediate impact on society.
             The story is written by an American Novelist, named Upton Sinclair. He was born in 1878 in Baltimore, Maryland. His father was an alcoholic, who eventually drank himself to death; and his mother came from a relatively wealthy family. He started writing novels at the age of fifteen, in 1897 he enrolled in Columbia University. In 1900 he married to his mother's friend's daughter and ended at 1911, he published a book about their relationship as penniless lovers. He then became known in 1906 for his book The Jungle, it had the deepest social impact since Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin. Sinclair died in his sleep on November 25, 1968 at Somerset Valley Nursing home.
             At the beginning of the story, Jurgis and the rest of his family come to America from Lithuania seeking wealth and opportunity at a new life in a new land. They are full of optimism at the prospect of getting jobs and owning their own house. Jurgis and his family came to America to pursue the American Dream, to make money and to live a free and healthy life away from poverty and disease. They are also of course, very naive. They have no idea what is in store for them and what they will have to go through. They learn very quickly that Chicago is full of cheats and liars that are ready and willing to swindle a family that doesn&apo...