In Maggie: A Girl of the Streets, Stephen Crane uses sentimentalism to create a dramatic and romanticizes setting. This setting is based on animal like laws of survival, and many characters are compared to animals whose traits they display. In The Jungle, Sinclair avoids doing this. His anti-sentimentalism paints no picture, though it often pulls the reader into making such comparisons.
Crane describes Maggie as eating, "like a small pursued tigress(Crane 9)." Showing the danger in such simple things as securing a meal is an important connection with life in the wild. In a scene which follows soon after, Jimmie is afraid of his mother, crawling into her room "with the caution of an invader of a panther den(Crane 12)." He is later described as "an African cow," and one who is pursued by the police often, becoming their "common prey(Crane 17)"
These are not the only examples of animal imagery, as they continue throughout the book. Crane also includes analogies and settings which paint a picture of a wild, Jungle like setting, where there is little justice except what is taken by the powerful.
Sinclair, on the other hand, paints no such picture. His anti-sentimentalist style and detached descriptions of horrifying working conditions and a horrible story are quite opposite of Crane's. So why is his novel entitled The Jungle?
I would argue that each author had different opinions over what would most resonate with their audience. I believe that Crane, operating early on in a genre that was having difficulty being accepted, needed to shock his audience. his colorful language does just that, and most likely had the exact effect he intended. Crane on the other hand, probably believed that his audience needed to reach a conclusion about the horrible conditions for immigrants on their own. His title offers the first step, and frames the story so that the audience is guided to the conclusion that these conditions are jungle-like. Instead of continuing with this imagery however, he simply catalogues the horrors of his character's lives. By doing this he gives the audience the chance to believe that they have come to a conclusion about this situation themselves. It is a well known saying that people like their own ideas more than others. Sinclair leaves the finer moral judgments to his readers, so that they are more likely to believe these judgments and advocate for them. In reality however, they have little choice but to come to these conclusions given what they are shown.
You have some valid points, however, still I am inclined to disagree.
ReplyDeleteI think Sinclair paints the picture desired with his portrayal of aloofness. What he says with his book is this: People are doing this without really caring at all, perhaps feeling as though that is what is needed to do the job. Maybe it is, for it is just so... gross. And in doing so, they are acting like animals: barbaric, dirty. It's mechanical chaos in the meat-packing house. People acting like machines(heartless, unaffected) acting like animals. It is in fact a jungle Sinclair gives us as well, I say.
Maggie: A girl of the Streets by Stephen Crane does a much better job of creating a “jungle” than Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle ironically. The jungle is traditionally known as a place of great biodiversity and functions upon a food chain where animals must fight daily for their survival and existence. Maggie and other characters of the slum face a Jungle type environment in their homes and daily lives where Sinclair’s jungle is much more in the workplace and factory life.
ReplyDeleteThe examples that directly reference Maggie an compare her to actions of animals is a direct connection to the “jungle” being formed in Crane’s novel. By him comparing the actions and behavior to that of an animal such as Maggie’s eating, “like a small pursued tigress(Crane 9).” This description shows how desperate she is for a meal as the female lions are in charge of obtaining the food for their families. Another character Jimmie is described as being afraid of his mother and crawls into her room, “with the caution of an invader in a panther den (Crane 12).” This intensifies, dehumanizes and helps to show the jungle Crane created as you can see how afraid Jimmie is to go into his own mothers room. The animalistic references compare as if a human were to actually crawl into a panther’s den they would use the utmost caution.
Sinclair’s novel I wouldn’t say, “paint’s no such picture” but rather doesn’t paint as strong or vivid a picture. Due to Sinclair’s anti-sentimentalist style he gives the reader information and lets the reader formulate and create more of the emotion than Crane. Sinclair also discusses the harsh and poor conditions in factory life and factory life structure while Crane talks more about home life. While a job isn’t always optional and usually needed for survival, having these problems in the home is much harder to escape and separate from. Sinclair however does describe and aims to create his “jungle” in the workplace and does so by showing the unforgiving and inhumane brutality of factory life.
I agree with Bridget on this one. I think that they both paint a picture of a jungle but both approach it in different ways. Crane creates imagery of a jungle through his word choice and poetic language while Sinclair allows readers more room for their own interpretations. Sinclair still shows us a jungle through his detached form of writing and by showing the dangers of the work.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Bridget, as well. Both novels, especially The Jungle, portray images of a jungle. They are just two different types of image. Maggie: Girl of the Streets uses metaphors to directly compare society to a jungle, whereas The Jungle uses anti-sentamentalism to bring about the image of a wild, uncaring jungle. A jungle, like Packington and the rest of society, doesn't care when someone on the lower end of the food chain dies. It is natural, it is evolution. The lack of emotion in the novel The Jungle just reinforces the image of a jungle.
ReplyDeleteThe heartless way the men and Jurgis act when slaughtering the animals brings about yet another aspect of the jungle. In a jungle, there are no emotions, it is just survival of the fittest. An animal has to hunt, kill, and eat to survive, and if that animal lets its emotion's cloud its ability to do so, it will die. It is the same situation with humans in the jungle called "Packington."