The Jungle

Mack Harman

Hendricks

History 112

2 October 2006

The Truth behind The Jungle

Jurgis Rudkus and Ona Lukoszaite open the novel of The Jungle with a celebration of their wedding. The opening of the book highlights the best time that Jurgis and Ona will ever again experience during their stay in America. Jurgis is convinced that he can accomplish the American Dream, gaining prosperity from hard work and dedication. However, as the novel progresses, we soon see that this dream that Jurgis had is much farther away than he anticipated, and prosperity seems untouchable unless one gives up their morals and values and joins the capitalistic America. In this novel we see Jurgis start with a dream and end with a dream, however much is lost in the process.

Jurgis and Ona deicide to move to America with the convincing of Teta Elzbieta' brother, Jonas, who tells stories of a man who made his fortune in America. However, the first sign of hard times and troubles comes when Jonas runs into this man in America and learns that he is far from successful, but rather suffering financial troubles. Upton Sinclair, author of The Jungle, opens the novel with the wedding feast and celebration of Jurgis and Ona to allow the reader to sympathize with the characters. If the novel immediately started with the hardships that fell upon this family the reader would know nothing of their values or lifestyle without poverty and misery. The first chapter allows the reader to connect with the family, so in turn the reader is more sympathetic to the hardships that the family goes through.

As soon as the wonderful feast with abundant amounts of food is over, Sinclair begins to introduce the reader into the life of an immigrant and the troubles that come upon the immigrants. Jurgis comes to America with a sense that he can become a successful man and support his family by hard work and dedication. He immediately begins looking for a job and finds one at a slaughter house. His job entails sweeping the entrails of slaughtered cattle through trap doors. At first Jurgis enjoys his job despite the unsanitary working conditions, long hours, and intense manual labor. The family seems content at first, however the longer they are in America the more they begin to learn about the true way of survival in Packingtown. Immigrant workers come and go, if someone gets hurt or dies on the job they are immediately replaced with another immigrant. Wage laborers are cut short of pay and can do nothing about it, spoiled meat and leftovers from several slaughtered animals are canned and shipped for consumption, and moving up in the work force seems all but possible. Sinclair is trying to allow the reader to see the truth behind the supposed wonderful place of America. The cheap labor forced upon immigrants, the extremely unsanitary working conditions and food distribution and the harsh reality of social Darwinism.

Jurgis' family continues to suffer despite the fact that they have purchased a house. However this is just another con of a sleazy person trying to make a living. The house is cheap and poorly built and is actually being rented until all of it is paid for, allowing the tenant to evict the family for just one late payment. Jurgis, still clinging to the thought of the American Dream, takes a hard hit when he learns that his wife has been forced to prostitution by her boss. Jurgis confronted and attacked Ona's boss and is taken to jail. In jail Jurgis meets people who have discovered the only way of survival, stealing, lying and cheating.

Jurgis' jail time is Sinclair's way of showing the reader that achieving the American Dream of prosperity through hard work is seemingly impossible. The corruption of the government and the work place in the