Open prompt response #2

1973. An effective literary work does not merely stop or cease; it concludes. In the view of some critics, a work that does not provide the pleasure of significant closure has terminated with an artistic fault. A satisfactory ending is not, however, always conclusive in every sense; significant closure may require the reader to abide with or adjust to ambiguity and uncertainty. In an essay, discuss the ending of a novel or play of acknowledged literary merit. Explain precisely how and why the ending appropriately or inappropriately concludes the work. Do not merely summarize the plot.

            The endings of literary works usually reveal something about their meaning.  This is true about the ending of Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle. Sinclair's story about the lives of a group of poor Lithuanian immigrants to Chicago’s meatpacking district suddenly changes to an argue for socialism at the end of the book.  Sinclair’s shift away from the characters and overuse of political rhetoric create a preachy tone that ends the novel with a single-minded argument for socialism. This is not appropriate in the context of the whole work.

            At the end of the novel, Sinclair breaks from his narrative and begins to make the case for socialism.  He abandons the main character Jurgis, and makes his perspective too general, mentioning things that Jurgis has never encountered in the story.  The work seems to really be only about Jurgis becoming a socialist.  This hurts Jurgis' complexity, simplifying him into a launching pad for a completely new argument.  During these final chapters, Sinclair only writes about socialism.  The same rhetoric is repeated so much that it quickly gets boring, and pulls the ending of The Jungle further away from the rest of the story.

            The tone of the last few chapters suffers from the use of these techniques.  Sinclair writes the beginning and middle of his novel in a dark tone.  It seems fitting during descriptions of the abuse of workers and Jurgis’ trials and tribulations in Chicago, but for no reason the ending quickly switches to an ultra-hopeful and radical tone that, at best, does not follow and reads as an advertisement.  This makes the ending even more disappointing by destroying the weighty narrative and distracting the reader from the meaning of the beginning and middle sections of the book.

            The Jungle's meaning is wasted by its ending, an inappropriate and extreme argument for socialism.  What could have been an ending that put forward a stance on the improvement of industrial class relations instead became a political pamphlet.  Sinclair's goal with The Jungle was never to create meaning, it was only to spread his ideology.