Jurgis and James “I have to believe that when things are bad I can change them.” Jurgis Rukis from the book The Jungle by Upton Sinclar struggled to support himself and his family in Chicago in the early 1900s. James Braddock also took on a struggle in the movie Cinderella Man. James lived in New York, New York in the 1930s. Jurgis and James are alike and different in many ways. Jurgis said many times throughout the story “I will work harder” (Sinclair 22). James Braddock makes sacrifices and promises for his family when they were faced with difficult situations. This shows the determination that these men stuck with throughout their lives. Although Jurgis and James do what they can to provide for their families, they have many similarities and differences in their physical traits, family dynamics, and personal values.
Jurgis and James went through a similar struggle, but different outcomes affected their
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They never gave up, even when it seemed that they could not get anything right. They did their best to put their families first and made many sacrifices. Their everyday lives were affected by the losses of loved ones. James came out on top after winning the final match and gained back everything he had lost, while Jurgis learned from his experiences and had only bettered himself by the end of the book. Jurgis did things he knew that were wrong to survive, while James would rather starve then eat a ham stolen by his son. Although Jurgis and James went through similar experiences, their lives were completely different. I feel that the quote “I have to believe that when things are bad I can change them” by James Braddock cooperates well with each of these characters because of the way they never completely gave up. To wrap it all up, Jurgis and James have changing physical appearances, strong family dynamics, and values, which they have learned from
After talking to Aubrey Rubenstein James Mcbride learns that all jews had moved out of the area says Mcbride. Also he learns that his family has taken over the slaughterhouse that james mother’s family owned as a child ( Mcbride 224). James also learns that not all white people treated blacks like if they weren’t the same. He says “ I found it odd and amazing when white people treated me that way, like if there was no barriers between us” (Mcbride 224). When James learned that all the jewish people had moved out he asked a lot of questions.
Tim Riggins is your prototypical bad boy football player. He is a womanizer drunk who doesn’t really care about anything so he is perceived as kind of a big time jerk. Deep down there is more to him than what you see on the surface like there is with everyone else. Tim is a big-hearted caring guy who is very loyal to the ones he loves. He sat by his friend Street’s side throughout the whole process of him being paralyzed.
James begins with the ID stage. He houses aggression towards knowing his background and understanding his sense of self. He is trying to understand what is good and bad with his own racial identity. The Ego aspect of James is that he is trying to satisfy his need of understanding his roots. James toward the end of the book explores places that his mother grew up to better understand his Jewish roots.
On the other hand, James is anxious in a fearful way because although James is black, his mother is not, and he feared for her life during
The characters make this an interesting journey that will have readers wanting to read more. This novel tangles the lives of two men from different racial and social backgrounds who are in different directions of their lives. Juke Jackson and Malcolm Wade create a bond and help each other through their struggles. They both are facing relationship struggles back at home. Wade was always there for Juke when he needed him.
Jurgis gains a new perspective of everything around him and everything that has happened. The main character Jurgis Rudkus is an immigrant coming to America. He searches for a job to provide money for his wife and parents. In the article Schema Criticism by Mark Bracher, he emphasizes that, “Jurgis is the prototypical image of autonomy. He is powerful, exuberant, striking figure who towers above the other workers” (32).
James losing the fight in the beginning is a symbolization for the breaking point of every Americans life during the Beginning of the Great Depression. When James wins the fight at the end it symbolizes how most Americans were able to pull themselves out of the horrible depression. Throughout all the hardships James had faith in himself that he would be able to fight again and make enough money to provide for his family again because of that he was able to accomplish
There are many other traps around America that deceive the immigrants because their weakness of not knowing English and the desire of getting a great life in America which lead them unpreparedly get fooled by the businessmen. These traps prevented the immigrants from leaving America, because of the significant amount of debt that they have to pay each month, which forced them to keep working and become the slave of this capitalistic society in America. Unfortunately, even they work very hard, in most of the time they will not get anything in return, such that Jurgis’s family cannot even keep the house at the of the book and many of family members’ health destroyed by the harsh working conditions in the
Throughout the book, Jurgis had to constantly switch jobs because of accidents that laid him off work. No jobs was available to Jurgis except the fertilizer mill. The job at the fertilizer is the worse of it can be, Jurgis describes “...the phosphates soaked in through every pore of jurgis’s skin and in five minutes he had a headache, and in fifteen was almost dazed. the blood was pounding in his brain like an engine’s throbbing ……”(108). The fertilizer mill Jurgis is working at is extremely unsafe.
His mother always steered him into the right direction and always warned him of avoiding outsiders. Every chance James got with his mother as a little kid was always a “high point of my day, a memory so sweet it is burned into my mind like tattoo (12).” She was a resilient and a loving woman to James. She always cared for her children and did not care what anyone did to her, but if it was towards her children she would do anything to protect them.
They had different ways of handling the situation. For example, James was caught up in the influence of society, “ I snatched purses. I shoplifted. I even robbed a petty drug dealer once.” (McBride 6).
Growing up, the only father, James knew was Hunter Jordan. James biological father died before he was born. Hunter was the stable male of the family and was James role model. On weekends Hunter would come home and provide them with food and supplies they needed. In The Color of Water James states “He came home only on weekends, striding into the living room with bags of groceries, Entenmann’s cakes, a pocketful of dough, and a real live automobile
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.
In the beginning of The Jungle Jurgis believes he can do anything, he is big and when he goes to work the bosses see him and like him for the jobs. While James thinks he can do anything too. He is setting on top of the world when he is winning all of his matches until he broke his hand and the revoked his license. Both men fell like the whole world is against them in the middle of the book and movie. They are both poor and have to work hard to get money and both have to overcome obstacles to get where they want to be.
The reader discovers that James hails from a large family consisting of seven siblings, his paternal grandparents, and his parents. It is clear through James’ narrative that he has not cultivated meaningful or lasting relationships with his younger siblings (28). Due to James being the eldest child of the family, he is emotionally, and literally, removed from his brothers and sisters (28-29). It is almost as if James is only aware of their names and ages when he mentions