Ona's Rape As Pragmatic Device?

It is an intriguing and feasible thought that Sinclair uses Ona's rape as a pragmatic device.   But to what end?  For what reason would he do this?  

Pragmatism examines cause and effect to discover a conclusion about the information provided.  What we know is this: Ona is working to help lift up and support herself, her family, and the American Dream.  It is a nightmare, really, that Sinclair has conceived.  Ona's employer takes advantage of her female frailty and he rapes her.  The American Dream implodes, the working man's bones puncturing the skin with the marrow of honest work(ers) and cruel intentions leaking out onto the meatpacking house floor.  We discover how voiceless Ona and workers who found themselves in similar positions really are.  It creates a desperate need for uplift, and Sinclair, throughout the novel, demonstrates how desperate is that need.  The rape especially instills a sense of weakness, of helplessness in its victim, in the reader as well until it becomes clear that the conditions of the workers in meatpacking houses, in the slums, in poverty in the jungle cry out for uplift.