20th Century Immigrants In Upton Sinclair's The Jungle

After all of those ups and downs and ins and outs, the book ends on a “happy” note (well at least for the main character). Marija is now a prostitute and will probably never better her life, but Jurgis and Test Elzbieta have joined a socialist party and begin to “reform” their lives. I am beginning to feel that Sinclair was hiding a message throughout the book the entire time: Socialism is the Savior of Immigrant Workers, and it took him 31 Chapters to do it. FINAL THOUGHT:

Jurgis started off firmly believing on his American dream of having a better life where he would work hard and earn lots of money. He took up work in a meatpacking plant where he had to sweep blood and body parts of slaughtered cattle. The job was unsafe and the conditions were bitter but he continued working a he was happy to get a job so fast. In the packinghouses the condition were deplorable, every part of the animal was used to make profit. Even spoiled meat was marked as good and sold out to public.

Throughout the novel, Upton Sinclair shows the readers the harsh working conditions during the early nineteen hundreds. The owners of big meat companies would take advantage of their authority over the workers and treat them with no respect. The workers had strict rules such as taking off an hours pay if a worker is one minute late to work or having no days off. In the beginning of the novel, Ona requests a day off for her wedding with Jurgis but her boss refuses. Not only that, but they do not know what is in their medicine.

The Jungle is a novel written by Upton Sinclair. The book portrays the life of immigrants during the late 1900s. Specifically focusing on the story of Jurgis Rudkus and Ona Lukoszaite and relatives, who immigrated from Lithuania to Chicago in search for a better and successful life. Shortly after arriving, Jurgis and Ona had a wedding feast in which they were left in one-hundred dollars of debt after the guest did not donate money to help cover the costs, which was a Lithuanian tradition. Then the family settled in Packingtown, which was the central place for Lithuanian immigrants and of the meatpacking industry in Chicago.

Employees are forced to work for long periods of time without breaks and less pay. This especially affects Jurgis and his family because their main source of income has been cut. Ona, Jurgis's wife, has also just had a baby and because he is at work for so long he is not able to spend time with his baby. (Sinclair, 420) The laborers in Packingtown are worked at a greater speed, but also working for a long time.

The Harsh Reality Experiencing hardships will change people for the rest of their lives. It is easy to see in Chicago during the time of The Jungle. The people of Packingtown led hard lives; harder than one can imagine. In The Jungle by Upton Sinclair, Jurgis and his family suffer and experience hardships; some of the most traumatic hardships include the poor working conditions, the swindling of immigrants, and the death of family members.

However, readers at the time were not very concerned about the petty immigrants living on the lower rung of society. Rather, they cared about what affected them most: the condition of the meat they were eating-- and had been eating-- for years, that were produced by some of the very factories mentioned in Sinclair’s novel. For the majority of The Jungle’s readers, the fact that poor immigrants were being exploited was not bothersome. Instead, the fact that the food that readers had been eating for years contained the power to kill them seemed shocking, pushing the nation into a worried frenzy. Readers were disgusted by the facts they were reading, catalyzing the creation of administrations like the FDA.

The Jungle by Upton Sinclair In the Jungle, it is shown that there were many factors that made the lives of immigrants miserable. In the early 1800’s the American life was wanted by many new immigrants. In The Jungle, the life of Lithuanian immigrants was made miserable by alcoholism, poverty, and people in higher authority. Upton Sinclair’s book, The Jungle, describes how alcoholism, poverty, and people in positions of authority had a negative impact on the lives of immigrants.

When Upton Sinclair, a progressive era muckraker, wrote The Jungle in 1906, he was attempting to bring knowledge of the horrific conditions in Packingtown to the average citizen. His revelations on the terrors of Packingtown helped to slowly improve the lives of the immigrants. Sinclair’s pursuit of knowledge relates to the slowly growing knowledge of the characters in The Jungle. Throughout the story the characters find themselves in many tragic circumstances that could have been more easily avoided if they had been more aware of their surroundings. The immigrants are full of a false hope for success that disillusions the reality of their life.

The Jungle written by Upton Sinclair was an expose on the life of those who lived in Packingtown, Chicago. Packingtown was where most of the people who was looking for work lived, it was a very crowded city. Job openings were scarce and most of the jobs were very unsafe. Most of the people in this part of town were poor, so they did not really have much doubts of food,. The Jungle exposed the horrific work conditions, the poor food quality, and the deceitfulness of the business owners.

Upton Sinclair portrays the economic tension in the United States during the late 19th and early 20th centuries through his novel “The Jungle”. He used the story of a Lithuanian immigrant, Jurgis Rudkus, to show the harsh situation that immigrants had to face in the United States, the unsanitary and unsafe working conditions in the meatpacking plants, as well as the tension between the capitalism and socialism in the United States during the early 1900s. In the late 19th century and early 20th centuries, there were massive immigrants move into the United States, and most of them were from Europe. The protagonist, Jurgis Rudkus, like many other immigrants, have the “America Dream” which they believe America is heaven to them, where they can

The conditions that Jurgis worked in were very unhealthy, the meat could be rotting on the ground and the blood could cause severe health issues. Workers during this time suffered completely, including Jurgis and his family. The workers had to keep up with how fast a machine could operate, and if they were unable to they could either lose a job or get injured. This fast pace work style also caused workers to sometimes be unsafe when they were working. Death inside factories was a common happening because of this .

A Time for Struggle and Change Upton Sinclair’s book, The Jungle, depicts the struggles of Lithuanian immigrants as they worked and lived in Chicago’s Packingtown at the beginning of the Twentieth Century. The United States experienced an enormous social and political transformation; furthermore, the economy, factories, and transportation industry grew faster than anyone had ever seen. Immigrants and migrants were attracted to city life for its promise of employment and their chance at the American Dream. The poor working class had little to no rights, and they grappled with unfair business practices, unsafe working conditions, racism, Social Darwinism, class segregation, xenophobia, political corruption, strikes, starvation, poor housing,

During the time period of the 1900’s, the meat packaging industry in Chicago, as Sinclair mentions in his novel, The Jungle, was a very unsanitary and extremely dangerous workplace that lacked much more than just a few safety precautions. Simple things, such as enforcing hand washing or workers’ rights were unheard of in the working environment. It is clear that Upton Sinclair was trying to expose the worker’s horrendous labor conditions in order to improve their situation, along with the introduction of socialism. Upton Sinclair, in his novel, talks about how a Lithuanian immigrant by the name of Jurgis Rudkus, and his family, travel to Chicago trying to make ends meet. However, they soon realize Chicago was not the place for that.

During the 1900’s working conditions were undeniably horrible. In Packingtown everyday got more difficult as the days went on. In the meat packing business things were supposed to be done quick. Inside the factories packing, chopping, inspecting and people actions didn’t mix. Not only did the people in the factories suffered, the people outside of the factory also suffered.