Granted, the ending of The Jungle reads as a treatise for socialism (it did first appear in a socialist newspaper), and scholars often dismiss Sinclair and his work instead of trying to determine his place in American literature. Very few contemporary critics consider The Jungle as favorably as Sinclair's socialist contemporary Jack London, who claimed that "what Uncle Tom's Cabin did for black slaves, The Jungle has a large chance to do for the wage slaves of today." The comparison to Harriet Beecher Stowe's famous book remains, and many critics think these two works deserve special consideration, not so much for their literary merit, but for the impact they had on the American public.
Still other critics recognize The Jungle as an early work, sort of a work in progress, for a future Pulitzer Prize winning novelist, embracing the positive aspects and forgetting the rest. Even the lukewarm responses praise Sinclair's incredible imagery and brutal realism. Thematically — the notion that industry is a jungle and the law of the jungle is survival of the fittest — Sinclair's book is as relevant at the turn of the next century as it was 100 years ago.
Contemporary critics who regard Sinclair and The Jungle favorably note that capitalism often times does encourage greed and ruthless competition and that many writers who state that the American dream is a myth are routinely embraced by those who reject Sinclair.
Sinclair had no models or traditions to follow, so The Jungle became, as critic William A. Bloodworth, Jr. states, "a flawed but strenuous effort" to create a new type of novel. Those in Sinclair's corner also claim that social indignation is a legitimate aspiration for any novelist. The Jungle and Sinclair have endured, not for any one particular reason, but rather, for a variety of reasons.
