Appeals for uplift in Maggie and The Jungle

In both Crane's Maggie and Sinclair's The Jungle, the stories of people living in the working class for whom jobs are difficult to find and for whom finding a way to get out of their situations is even harder are used to speak to the audience and illustrate the need for uplift. In The Jungle, the harsh working conditions of the working class and the unsanitary, dishonest, and inhumane practices of large companies, particularly the meat industry, are shown, communicating to the reader the need for a change in society to eliminate these major problems that were claiming many lives. In Maggie, the situation of Maggie and her family in the slums of New York was portrayed, focusing on Maggie's attempt to escape, which ultimately failed, showing the need for change so that people born in the slums would not be left there until the environment killed them. In both of these works, the authors were showing harsh situations in which the main characters were trapped, and used these situations to illustrate the need for change.