Have you ever been in the middle of an argument, only to have the other person totally miss your point and focus on some little detail you happened to mention? Hey, I'm trying to tell you that basketball is way more awesome than baseball, but all you can focus on is that the hot dogs they sell taste awful! Well, you're not alone. A similar thing happened when Upton Sinclair published his famous book, The Jungle, and tried to make a point, only to have everyone focus on something else in the book.

Born in 1878, Sinclair was a devout believer in socialism who thought that Americans should vote for a government that would take over businesses and give power to the workers. At age 26, after writing a bunch of sports books and westerns no one seemed to like, Sinclair decided it was time to show the world what was up. Sinclair believed that industrial America was a place where avarice and corruption dominated, and big business treated workers like expendable, squashable bugs. He would try to make that point by writing a book about the meatpacking industry.

After spending weeks in Chicago talking to meatpackers and wandering around slaughterhouses, Sinclair was ready to start writing. Eventually, he decided the best way to illustrate what he saw as the evils of the meatpacking industry, which he called "the Great Butcher…the spirit of capitalism made flesh," was to have the main character, Jurgis, experience one disaster after another.

In the beginning of The Jungle, bright-eyed Jurgis comes to America and gets a job shoveling animal guts, and things go downhill quickly from there, as Jurgis eventually becomes family-less and homeless. Along the way, the book contains a lot of horrible deaths, including Jurgis's father, who dies from pickle poisoning, and his brother-in-law, who is eaten alive by rats. After a while, Jurgis loses all hope and turns to a life of crime, but after fleeing town to avoid a prison sentence, he stumbles into a socialist political meeting where he finally finds some meaning for his life: working to elect socialist candidates.

When The Jungle was published, socialists and many others lauded it as a game changer. "Sinclair has done it, and now, the workers will finally unite!" many said. Others, however, had a different takeaway, and rather than embracing the plight of working people and demanding better working conditions, all they could talk about was how there might be rats' feet in their breakfast sausage.

That's because of Sinclair's vivid depiction of slaughterhouses. He described how companies employed duplicitous practices like using chemicals to hide the smell of rancid meat and reselling the leftover parts of the cow as "chicken." There's even a part in his book where a worker is accidentally killed, boiled, and turned into lard! It was hard for readers to focus on political ideas about socialism and democracy after reading that.

When President Theodore Roosevelt read the book, he was revolted like so many others, and in 1906, Congress passed and Roosevelt signed the Pure Food and Drug Act and the Meat Inspection Act. The new legislation forever changed the shockingly unsafe and unsanitary conditions that Sinclair described. Later, when reflecting on his novel, Sinclair wrote, "I aimed at the public's heart…and by accident hit it in the stomach."

Which passage from the Article best supports the opinion that most Americans living during Upton Sinclair's time weren't influenced by his political ideas?
A. When The Jungle was published, socialists and many others lauded it as a game changer. "Sinclair has done it, and now, the workers will finally unite!"
B. At age 26, after writing a bunch of sports books and westerns no one seemed to like, Sinclair decided it was time to show the world what was up.
C. There's even a part in [Sinclair's] book where a worker is accidentally killed, boiled, and turned into lard!
D. Later, when reflecting on his novel, Sinclair wrote, "I aimed at the public's heart…and by accident hit it in the stomach."