The Jungle

Characters:

Jurgis Rudkus - A Lithuanian immigrant who comes to America with his wife, Ona. Jurgis is a strong and determined with a faith in the American Dream of self-betterment. However, his health, family, and hopes are slowly brought down by the bad working and living conditions in Packingtown. Jurgis slowly changes from believing in capitalism to socialism.

Ona Lukoszaite - Teta Elzbieta's stepdaughter and Jurgis's wife. A kind, lovely, and optimistic girl, Ona is ruined by the forces of capitalism that work against the family, particularly after she is raped by her boss, Phil Connor.

Teta Elzbieta Lukoszaite - Ona's stepmother and the mother of six others. A resilient, strong-willed old woman, Teta Elzbieta is one of the strongest and most important characters in The Jungle. Sinclair uses her to represent the redemptive power of family, home, and tradition.

Marija Berczynskas - Ona's cousin, who travels to America with the rest of the family because her employer in the old country is unkind to her. Marija is a large, strong woman, capable of standing up for herself; because she first tries to fight back against the corrupt bosses, she represents a spirit of defiance among the immigrants that is slowly crushed.

Phil Connor - Ona's boss, who sexually harasses her at the factory where she works. A bullying, depraved man, Connor represents the moral corruption of power in Chicago as well as the complicated relationship between politics, crime, and business.

Dede Antanas Rudku - Jurgis's father, who travels to America with the rest of the family. A proud man, Dede Antanas is prevented by his old age from obtaining a job normally. He has to pay a man a third of his wages in return for a job, whose unsanitary and unsafe working conditions destroy his health.

Antanas Rudkus - Ona and Jurgis's son. Antanas is a strong, sturdy little boy, but he drowns in the mud in the street while Jurgis is at work.

Grandmother Majauszkiene - The family's Lithuanian neighbor when they move into their house. A concerned old woman, Grandmother Majauszkiene has lived in Packingtown for many years and has seen one generation after another of immigrants ground into ruin by the merciless labor practices of the factories. She became a socialist before she even came to America.

Juozapas Lukoszaite - One of Teta Elzbieta's two crippled children, injured when a wagon ran over one of his legs when he was a toddler. Juozapas helps the family when he meets a rich lady while looking for food in the local dump.

Kotrina Lukoszaite - One of Teta Elzbieta's children, who is forced to care for the children and work at household chores. When Jurgis is sent to prison, Kotrina has to go to work selling newspapers on the streets with her able-bodied brothers.

Stanislovas Lukoszaite - One of Teta Elzbieta's children, a young boy of about fourteen. Stanislovas shirks his responsibilities as a wage earner because he is terrified of frostbite. Jurgis often has to beat him to make him go to work.

Jonas - Teta Elzbieta's brother, who first encourages the family to travel to America. After months of poverty in Packingtown, Jonas disappears, and the family never hears from him again. His absence deprives the family of a key wage earner and throws them into a greater financial crisis.

Jack Duane - A polished, charismatic criminal whom Jurgis meets during his first prison term. Jack later introduces Jurgis to Chicago's criminal underworld, where money comes easily to Jurgis for the first time in America.

Miss Henderson - The forelady in Ona's factory. Cruel and bitter, Miss Henderson runs a brothel and arranges to get jobs for some of the prostitutes that work for her. She hates Ona because Ona is a "decent married girl," and she and her friends try to make Ona as miserable as possible.

Tommy Hinds - The proprietor of a small Chicago hotel and a well-known proponent of socialism. Jurgis obtains a job as Hinds's porter not long after his conversion to socialism.

Ostrinski - A Polish immigrant who speaks Lithuanian. After Jurgis hears an arousing speech at a socialist political meeting, Ostrinski is assigned the task of teaching Jurgis about socialism.

Nicholas Schliemann - A spokesperson for socialism. Nicholas gives a long explanation of socialist philosophy to a magazine editor who has written against socialism in the past.

Mike Scully - A corrupt, wealthy democrat in Chicago who owns the dump in which Juozapas and other children forage for food. Scully makes money off the housing scheme to which Jurgis's family falls victim. He works at rigging elections, and Jurgis becomes one of his henchmen during his brief stint in the Chicago criminal underworld.

Jokubas Szedvilas - The failing proprietor of a delicatessen in Packingtown who knows Jonas from the old country.

Important Quotations Explained

1. "Here was a population, low-class and mostly foreign, hanging always on the verge of starvation, and dependent for its opportunities of life upon the whim of men every bit as brutal and unscrupulous as the old-time slave drivers; under such circumstances immorality was exactly as inevitable, and as prevalent, as it was under the system of chattel slavery. Things that were quite unspeakable went on there in the packing houses all the time, and were taken for granted by everybody; only they did not show, as in the old slavery times, because there was no difference in color between master and slave."

This quote from Chapter 10 comes from Sinclair's explanation of Ona's working conditions. She is forced to work under Miss Henderson, who runs a prostitution ring, and most of her coworkers are prostitutes. Sinclair presents these conditions as a bad situation for the modest, moral Ona but also offers an explanation in which the prostitution is examined in rough economic terms. Prostitution is shown not as being the fault of the women, but as the fault of the capitalists. This passage also shows some of sexual oppression that young working girls are must deal with from bosses and foreshadows Ona's rape at the hands of Phil Connor.

Also, the last sentence show how with capitalism, things are not always as they seem. Capitalism is portrayed as being more of an illusion, seeming to be attractive on the surface and calm. However, it goes on to say that underneath the surface, capitalism is in many ways a modern slavery.