Final answer:
Upton Sinclair's 'The Jungle' highlights the appalling living conditions of the working class in the early 20th century, using Aniele’s boarding house as an example of overcrowded, unsanitary living spaces compounded by corporate greed and insufficient housing.
Step-by-step explanation:
The Jungle by Upton Sinclair graphically portrays the dire living conditions of working-class families through examples such as Aniele’s boarding house. Aniele’s boarding house symbolizes the overcrowded, unsanitary, and dismal conditions that the working man and their families had to endure. The narrative shows that due to corporate greed and a lack of housing, entire families often lived within a few cramped rooms, where activities such as cooking, eating, working, and socializing were all confined to the same space, highlighting the lack of privacy and comfort.
The story doesn't shy away from the grim realities of life in Chicago's meatpacking district, detailing how the workers were exploited and lived in hazardous environments that were also detrimental to their health. The conditions described in Sinclair’s novel were not unique to the characters within it, as history records similar hardships for the urban poor during that era, vividly captured through other mediums like the photojournalism of Jacob Riis.