While both The Jungle by Upton Sinclair and “America and I” by Anzia Yezierska are texts that deal with the dehumanization of Eastern European immigrants in the efficiency movement of the early 20th century, Yezierska’s narrator is quicker to fight against this Americanized ideal and redefine what it means to be an “American” than Sinclair’s Jurgis. During the efficiency movement of the …show more content…
Because Anzia and Jurgis’s respective employers viewed them as subhuman and cheap labor, it was easy for them to “den[y] full humanness” and view Anzia and Jurgis as unrefined, uncivilized, immoral, unintelligent, and lacking self-control (Esses 522). If the employers viewed their workers as animalistic and less than human, they were not obligated to feel guilt for creating an unsafe working environment and paying unfair wages. Most, if not all, business owners of the time held these viewpoints, and so if workers felt they were being treated unfairly, there was no alternative work to turn to. They were forced to endure this inhumane