The Jungle And Socialism

Upon Sinclair was an American Novelist that wrote The Jungle in 1906. Sinclair’s novel portrayed harsh conditions and abused lives if immigrants in Chicago. The book illustrates working class poverty, lack of social support and unpleasant living and work conditions causing hopelessness among many workers. Sinclair wrote The Jungle to promote socialism. The issue that caught attention of the public was the horror of the meat packing industry. There are a lot of characters in The Jungle, they all have significant roles. The main character is Jurgis Rudkus he is a Lithuanian immigrant. His wife is Ona Lukoszaite who is also from Lithuania. Their one child named Antanas but he died which I believed caused one of the major crossroads in Jurgis’s …show more content…
It describes the party and its guests and then after goes back in time before the wedding and before Jurgis, Ona and her family left Lithuania. Jurgis and Ona met at a fair and Jurgis fell in love with her. They were too poor to have a wedding and at the time Ona’s father had passed. In hopes of a better life they left to America with some of Ona’s family members. When they arrived in America they were taken to Packingtown in Chicago where the meat industry was. Jurgis saw the unbelievable way animals were butchered, cooked, packed and shipped out. Packingtown seemed to take pride in that not one part of an animal was wasted. Jurgis being of a bigger built obtains a job rather quickly. It seemed that Jurgis was happy with his job and being in America until he learns that America is stricken with corruption and bribery. He was being forced to be overworked at high speeds and low pay. He was cheated of money numerous times which caused the children of the family to leave school and get jobs in order to survive. This upsets Jurgis because he knows the children will not be able to get ahead in life without their education. Ona is unable to take off work to celebrate her wedding; she is unable to take off when she has her baby. This again puts more stress and anger on Jurgis. After the birth of their son Antanas Ona becomes pregnant again but does not tell Jurgis. She returns home late one night …show more content…
Jurgis made enough money at one point that in the past he would have considered a small fortune. But he wasted the money in one night on alcohol and women. This caused Jurgis to go back to Chicago for the winter. Jurgis continues his drinking and ends up in a bar fight and was sent to jail again. This second term of jail Jurgis meets Jack Duane who is a knowledgeable criminal. Once released Jurgis finds Jack to join him in a life of crime. That is when Jurgis learns about the connection between politics and criminals. Jurgis sees Conner and beats him up a second time but because of the political connection of Conner, Jurgis loses it all including his underground