The Poor Working Class In Upton Sinclair's The Jungle

In the book The Jungle, Upton Sinclair depicts how the exploitation and impoverishment of the working class contribute to financial struggles. Sinclair displays this idea of the poor working class through Jurgis and his family. When moving to America, Jurgis had the intention of achieving the “American Dream.” The American Dream is known as one who comes to America and becomes very rich. Only two days after his arrival in Chicago, Jurgis is offered a job. Hundreds of people stand outside of workplaces everyday begging for a job, so Jurgis is extremely lucky. Once Jurgis and his family invest in buying a house, they were lied to and ripped off. Salesmen lie just so that he or she can take advantage of people for personal gain. This left the family with very little money to pay for rent along with food and other needs. The family financially struggles severely throughout the book and they lose their jobs a number of times, leaving them with no way to take care of one another. There are even times when the family has no money left at all. …show more content…
The meat industries do not handle the food in a well manner. Meat is left on the floor, out in the humidity, and everything else on the ground such as rat poison, dead rats, nails, and dirt get swept up and thrown into a large bin to be ground up and mixed together. This meat is then sold to customers for high prices. All of the people in Packingtown consume this meat. This is an immense health risk. In the workplaces, there are many injuries because of the dangerous machines and endless hour of work. Jurgis has to stay out of work twice for a few months because of an injury in his ankle the first time, and an explosion injury the second time. Along with this, when people run out of money to buy food, such as Jurgis and his family, they starve and do not eat for days at a time. This is also very terrible for a person’s