The Jungle by Upton Sinclair follows the main character Jurgis Rudkus who is an immigrant from Lithuania. Jurgis immigrated to the United States and made his way to Chicago in order to follow the path of a legendary hometown name, Jokubas, who supposedly made a lot of money in the states. Upon reaching the United States and arriving in Chicago they realized it would be much harder to establish an income in a city they weren’t familiar with. Their luck changed when they happened upon the infamous Jokubas and found out he ran a local delicatessen in the stockyards in Chicago. Jokubas helped them find a place to sleep for the night in a boarding house while they used those first days to look for work in order to move to a nicer place of living.
Upton Sinclair 's, The Jungle, is set in the early 1900’s and tells the story of Jurgis, the main character, who has much trouble in succeeding the tasks he promises to fulfill for his family. Jurgis Rudkus is married to Ona. The two have two late children and two handicapped children. When he, his wife, and their children move to Packingtown, Chicago from Lithuania, Jurgis finds a job to provide for them. Of course, having one person only working to pay the bills is difficult especially with the little pay.
In Jurgis’ first job, the health standards are extremely low. As I said before in my summary, “ Animals that are diseased were thrown in with the rest, rats constantly run over the meat and eat the meat, and when a human worker would fall into the meat chute, their screams would be ignored and they we packed with the rest of the meat.” If anyone of these things happened in a meat factory, the factory would be shut down and any person high up the imaginary latter would be sued extensively. Another thing that I learned is that you should never commit to an idea before it is proven. Sinclair dedicates this book to his believe that socialism is a better system of government than capitalism. This book was written in 1906 before the rise of the most notable socialist country, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics or the USSR.
Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle is an American novel classic. This book provides a lens into the life of 20th century immigrants working in poor conditions throughout industrialization. Sinclair set out to expose the harsh conditions that these poor immigrants had to live in. By doing so, he wanted to show that not only was the meatpacking industry vile, but also wanted to show that capitalism doesn’t work. Sinclair thought that communism benefits everyone.
The Jungle is a story that revolves around the protagonist Jurgis Rudkus and his family, the Lithuanian immigrant who came to America to lead a better life and worked at meatpacking plants of early 20th century Chicago. The story showcases the hardship that they underwent due to the harsh and bad working condition, poverty, starvation and being cheated by unjust people agents, eventually losing all their money. The Jungle provides us ways to look at the unfettered capitalism that prevailed in the early 20th century. This book also exposes the corruption, inequality, unjustness, sickness and slavery that existed in the society. Jurgis started off firmly believing on his American dream of having a better life where he would work hard and earn lots of money.
The Jungle by Upton Sinclair, is set in Chicago in the early 1900’s, during the height of social reform known as the Progressive era. The population of Chicago had grown substantially, from 29,000 in 1850 to 1.7million in 1900, due to the influx of immigrants in search of the “American dream”. America was the destination of all in search of freedom, equality and higher wages. The dream promised success in exchange for hard work, determination and morality. The reality was that the “American dream” was just an illusion.
The Jungle is a book about a Lithuanian man that struggles to keep his family alive in Chicago. Cinderella Man is about a New Jersey man that struggles to keep his family alive. Both characters have similar traits. Jurgis and James Braddock are in similar situations, and have to fight to survive, and keep their family alive. Jurgis is a Lithuanian man that comes with his family to Chicago to live a better life.
Summary: The Jungle by Upton Sinclair begins with Jurgis’s and Ona’s wedding day at Chicago’s meat packing building. The beginning of the book is based on flashbacks for the couple, such as from when they meet in Lithuania to deciding to move to the United States in hopes of a better life. Not only does the newly wed couple decide to go but other family members decide to go too. Once they arrive to Chicago they realize that America is not exactly how they envisioned it to be. Not long after hunting for a job they all finally find one.
He does everything, and anything that could bring a better life to his family. By way of example, Jurgis’ actions after Ona reveals that she has been raped. “To Jurgis this man’s whole presence reeked of the crime he had committed; […] Jurgis was so bent upon his task that he knew nothing of this, and scarcely realized that people were trying to interfere with him; […] In a flash, he had bent down and sunk his teeth into the man’s cheek; […]” (Sinclair 153). Jurgis sees no consequence when it comes to protecting the ones that he loves, this greatly contributes to his overall credibility as a complex character, with many different characteristics. Jurgis’ “roundness” packs on to the significance of Sinclair’s The Jungle.
The Jungle, by Upton Sinclair is renowned source of political fiction that pioneered the movement of food safety in the United States. The Jungle was first published in a socialist newspaper in 1905 and then later adapted into a novel in 1906 after popular demand. Sinclair initially wrote the exposé as a way to change the unfortunate circumstances of immigrant laborers, whose working conditions that were believed to be unacceptable for any laborer in the industry. Sinclair leaves short references of his political opinions in the novel in various locations throughout the text “As if political liberty made wage slavery any the more tolerable!” (Sinclair 31). Written as an indirect attack at the labor industry, the real driving force behind the popularity of the novel was that many readers could not fathom the truth behind the meat industry.