Essay on Upton Sinclair's The Jungle

The Jungle (1906), by Upton Sinclair, is a story mainly about the life and turmoil of a man who came to American in hopes that he will become a free, rich man with a beautiful wife, Ona, and happy family; this man is the young Jurgis Rudkus, a strong, energetic Lithuanian whose personality and life are all changed several times over the coarse of the story. Major— usually tragic— events that occur in the story serve as catalysts for Jurgis's dramatic, almost upsetting, transformations. There were four major turning points in Jurgis's life: after he loses his job and is forced to work at a fertilizer mill; when he loses his wife and children; when he is incorporated into the criminal and political underworlds; and when he picks his life

The Jungle takes place in Packingtown, Chicago in the early 1900’s. Jurgis, his fiancée, her family and his father emigrate from a small town in Lithuania to Packington, Chicago to get married and start a new life. Jurgis and his new wife, Ona, are having a feast to celebrate their marriage. Everyone drank and danced until three in the morning, knowing they would have to work the next day. At the end of the feast, they found that they were over a hundred dollars in debt to the saloonkeeper.

He is apart from his family, humiliated in front of his cellmates, and then is made to attend trial. After a Christmas apart from family he is sentenced to another thirty days in prison. With his family out of work, Jurgis unable to provide without working, and further hardships the family is evicted from their rented home. At the boarding house they have been relegated to, they experience more loss as Ona dies along with their second child.

In my opinion, this was a very good novel. The Jungle is a useful source to anyone interested in the current issues of immigration, industrialization, organized labor, and government regulation of the economy in America. I would definitely recommend it for my friends who are immigrant so we might acknowledge and understand more about the difficulties of a very first newly immigrant in America. This book is not only entertaining and interesting, but it also teaches me a lot about American history. As a foreigner, sometime I want to give up; however, this story has strengthened me to archive a better future. After many corrupted events happen in the story, readers would understand the main character, Jurgis better. The author writes, “So America was a place of which lovers and young people dreamed. If one could only manage to get the price of passage, he could count his troubles at an end”. Jurgis, as similar to other immigrants, who is very naive to begin with; however, through so many life obstacles, how the entire system operates. Readers would see the broadest picture of a corrupted system that destroy everything to preserve its own wealth and keep a mess on the working-class people who are either too busy or too ignorant to organize and abolish it. Finally, he ends up with no consideration and room for optimism on a brighter tomorrow. There are not any plans for the future where Jurgis tries to achieve and keeps working on. He endures a disturbing life fulfilled with ups and downs, even deceitfulness, drug abuse, and criminal. This book also reminds American should be thankful for the changes of the progressive era; how much American takes for granted in our day-to-day lives. The author does a great job of conveying the terrible hardship faced by the unqualified labor

In Foster’s writing, he believes the emphasis should be on the character’s personality being altered throughout the story, “No matter how large or small the action, the most important thing that characters can do is change, develop, learn, mature, call it what you will.” This change is seen in Jurgis, the father in this Lithuanian immigrant family, after coming back from jail for assaulting his wife’s boss, who sexually assaulted her. Before serving time, Jurgis has the persona of a hard working immigrant with the strong motivation to work as hard as he can to provide for his family. He never steals, participates in any illegal activities and promises his wife he will work even harder when they have any financial stress. Once out of jail, his wife and first child die in succession. The circumstance he’s put in, spirals his life out of control, leading him to squander his measly earnings to drink heavily, abandon his family, and turn to corruption and crime as a

Enlightened with disbelief of how harsh Chicago was in the 1900. The jungle begin with a Lithuanian wedding of Jurgis and his sixteen year old bride, Ona. The wedding turns out to be something they can’t afford because no one is following the unwritten tradition of money giving and sets the framework for the changes that they are just learning to come across in their fresh beginning. They were Immigrants with dreams of becoming rich. Due to Jurgis size and strength he was hired at brown and company shortly after their second day in Chicago. With Ona, his wife; T Elzbietha’s which is her aunt and Elzbieta's six children. Marija who is Ona's cousin Jonas, Elzbieta's brother and Jurgis' father Antenas, they begin their journey in

In this novel Upton Sinclair shows the problems of working class people. His believe in and contempt for capitalism as described in this story “The Jungle”. The writer explains capitalism in which the labor communities were treated very badly and to survive in the conditions of poverty. The novel rotates around the family of a character Jurgis Rudkus who have immigrated to America from Lithuania. As well as explained about the shameless extortion of migrants in the U.S.A.

The Jungle is a about a family of lithuanian immigrants that leave their hometown to come to America because they hope to make a better life for themselves, and they believe America is the place to do it. They arrive in Packingtown a city in Chicago where they are put to work in the meatpacking plants. Once there, they learned that the dreamed they had imagined is not turning out the way they hoped it would. Still Jurgis and his family do not give up hope, but eventually like every other family in the city of Packingtown they to lose any hope they had.

There were no regulations that required safer conditions. He could not afford to replace his shoes at the rate the chemicals at his job ate through them. The businesses took no responsibility for injuries acquired in the workplace, and if he took time off to heal he would not have a job to come back to. Jurgis was injured at work, and then lost his job because he could not come to work; then, because he was injured it was harder for him to find a job. The stockyards were responsible for the disfiguration of many workers, but they were also the cause of many deaths for which they took no responsibility:

Another immigrant named Jurgis, who also struggled from arduous labor in trying to make ends meet, is discussed by Sinclair in his novel “The Jungle”. A usual day of work for Jurgis at the fertilizer plant he worked at consisted of him becoming what seemed like “a mass of fertilizer from head to feet” (Sinclair 2) which made him appear as “a brown ghost at twilight” who was “the color of the building and of everything in it” (Sinclair 3). Despite the tough working conditions, Jurgis “stuck it out” because even though he had “splitting headaches” and shoveled “blinding clouds of dust,” he knew that being “a fertilizer man for life” would allow for him to help his family financially (Sinclair 3). The fact that Jurgis was so desperate to work

The Jungle by Upton Sinclair was a novel written to display the crudeness of Chicago’s big business. It tells the life of Jurgis Rudkus, who moves to Chicago, Illinois from Lithuania. He faces many health and employment related issues in his new life. Upton Sinclair uses capitalism as a symbol of evil, and corruption, he does this by telling the health, and employment related issues Jurgis and his family have, while socialism is symbolized as angelic and bright. What should have been a clear beginning after Jurgis’ wedding, was actually great turmoil.

This to me is true, a family would easily starve than be caught in a mess where everyone was broke so they lost their jobs. In the story Jurgis is struggling to keep a regular job. Getting robbed he attacked the man who would not give him the correct change back. He finds the jungle of the society as political correctness to be harder to keep going with, than stealing. He then rethought the worthless moral values. This reminds me of almost every villain in a story or a movie. The story “The Jungle” farther after this I no longer reflect on.

He was in charge of cleaning the remains of slaughtered cattle. The family is manipulated into renting a house that was supposed to be for sale for way more than they bargained. Ona and Jurgis family is slowly falling into a hard space. They start to get sick from the unhealthy living conditions in the town, but being sick is not in their budget. Ona gives birth later falling sick, Jurgis springs his ankle, which forces him to be off work, and their youngest child dies from consuming some of the bad meat produced by a local

Jurgis and the others are afraid of the policemen because they kept taking advantages of the immigrants but requesting fines before they can leave the ship. Felt consternation and chagrin, they paid the fine and spent most of their money before they reach Chicago. Since the family that Sinclair uses to speak to the battle of the common laborers under private enterprise is a gathering of Lithuanian migrants, the novel is likewise relating to the situation of foreigners in America. Jurgis, Ona, and their family come to America in view of the guarantee of high wages and a decent life. From the beginning, they keep up a confidence in the American dream the possibility that diligent work and profound quality will yield material achievement and satisfaction.

Jurgis and his family have very bad luck, and under the conditions they live in, Getting sick is extremely easy, and getting treatment is extremely hard. Jurgis gets hurt multiple times at work because of a dangerous environment, and is forced to stay home without receiving any pay. Sickness and disease spreads quickly among the poor workers, a reason being the extremely poor hygiene at the factories where they all work, and they also can not afford good enough health care. Ona dies while giving birth in her