You might want to skip that ham sandwich while reading this. How can no one notice men falling into giant barrels of pork fat? And then melting there and being transported to the canning section, so that people are actually eating those unfortunates?

Anyway, it seems that most readers seem to cling to the descriptions of factories and slaughterhouses, but actually Sinclair's purpose was to draw attention to the lives of poors and how they were taken advantage by the capitalist society. This is the story of immigrants, whose lives rarely had a happy ending. Instead their days were filled with uncertainty and both mental and physical suffering. Accidents and misfortunes of the main characters keep piling up, so it's a bit tough and tedious to read sometimes, but still really interesting.