Brief Summary Of The Jungle, By Upton Sinclair

The Jungle by author Upton Sinclair is a story about Jurgis Rudkus and his family who immigrated to America from Lithuania. Jurgis, his wife Ona and their relatives end up getting conned into buying a house with all of their savings near the stockyards and meat packing district in Chicago. Jurgis winds up working in the slaughterhouse where conditions are harsh and unsafe and the pay is low. All of the relatives including the women and the children have to go out and have to seek work to make ends meet. Jurgis and his family all experience hardships from illnesses, injuries or not being able to find work and struggle to pay for rent or buy food for their starving children. Jurgis’s father dies because of the work conditions in the meatpacking plant, and another relative dies of food poisoning and Jurgis ends up with an injury that causes him to stay out of work for too long and ends up losing his job. …show more content…
Once he’s released from jail he finds out that they were evicted from their home and his family is living in a boarding house, he also finds Ona in labor but she and the child end up dying. After experiencing another death, now of his youngest child he sets out to become a tramp and travel across the country where he comes to find work in farming. He eventually ends up going back to Chicago where his hardships continue. Jurgis finds his way to a rally where a speaker named Ostrinski was talking about the economic, social and political injustices that keep workers from advancing and keep them in poverty. Jurgis is enthralled and wants to learn more from Ostrinski, he explains more about socialism to Jurgis and Jurgis eventually ends up being an advocate for the socialist