Book Summary: The Jungle

The Jungle Antanas Rudkus- Jurgis’s and Ona’s oldest son. Very much loved and cared for, by his family. Antanas, just as his father was portrayed as a strong, well-built boy. Unfortunately, after Ona’s death while Jurgis was at work, he drowned in a puddle of mud. Ultimately ending the little hope Jurgis had left.
Dede Antanas Rudkus- Jurgis father described as a proud, hardworking old man. Determined to find a job, because he believes he should still be able to contribute to the family. However, his old age, weakness, and competition makes it nearly impossible for him to find a job. Therefore, forcing him to pay one third of his salary to a man in order to get and keep the job. After finally landing a job, the working conditions make him …show more content…
Women are treated worse than men; they are seen as weak and desperate. There was definitely obstacles and opportunities they faced. The biggest obstacles they faced was being paid less than male workers, and constantly being harassed, in some cases raped and forced into prostitution. The biggest opportunities would be; they wore more likely to be hired, although it seemed like a positive thing, in reality it was not. The only reason they were more likely to be hired was that they were paid less and were very submissive. Like in Ona’s case, she was raped, sexually harassed and blackmailed into keeping quiet by boss Phil Connor. He abuses his power, like many other bosses in order to take advantage of young …show more content…
There are several examples of corruption throughout the book. The first is the housing fraud Jurgis and his family face. When they decided to buy the house, they were told the house was new with no previous owners and in excellent conditions, but they soon learn the truth. The company that builds the houses makes its profits of cheating poor people, they built houses very cheaply, and only focus on the outside appearance; marketing up the value. The purpose of this fraud is to find people who have just enough money for the down payment, but not enough to keep on paying the monthly payments, as soon as they miss one payment they are evicted and the houses are resold to another naïve family. When Jurgis came back from the country, shocked by the unpleasant surprise of a new family in his house, he was told that they had just purchased the “new” house. The second is Dede Antanas having to pay a man a third of his salary to get a job and to keep it. Which was common for others to do so in the desperation of getting a job, to help support their families. For a male worker this was definitely quite the humiliation. The last example of corruption would be; judges got paid to send Jurgis to jail by Mike Scully. The power “important” figures had over workers was horrifying. Scully was the main component of corruption in