FREE ESSAY ON THE JUNGLE

THE JUNGLE

The novel ' The Jungle' by Upton Sinclair took place in the 1900's the main character in
this book is Jurgis Rudkis and his dynamic change to Socialism. He started out as a young
and strong man looking for the american dream. He left Lithuania in hope of starting a
family and a cordial Life. The beginning of this book starts at the wedding of Jurgis and
Ona Lukoszaite which I believe symbolizes that they are starting a new life for
themselves and it is starting out with happiness and a bond. They live in Packington
their first day the get jobs quite easily still supporting the idea that things are going
well. Jurgis was a hard working and good willed man in the beginning suprisingly he even
liked his job at the killing beds. The conditions there were horrible, there was no
concern for workers because if one would quit then the industries would go down to the
docks and hire another immigrant who would work for nothing . That' s where union's came
in but they were also corrupt and could be counterstriked by industries. So that's where
the Socialist Party came in and what I believe the central theme is. It was a worker's
political party a party that realized the only way to change things was to control the
Government. I also believe this book was written for people to know about all the
unjustice's that were commited at this time through the money hungry politicians and
industrial giant's and how immigrants where exploited along with their families and used
by the system of
waste and replace. Since there was such a steady flow of unskilled workers coming into
the country employers didn't have to worry about the needs of their workers. Jurgis and
his family expierienced this world of unjustice drastically.
Eventually they get a house, which causes them all to get a job to afford it, but they
can still manage. Antanas who is Jurgis's father soon dies from tuberculosis. Winter
comes and is hard for anyone who isn't prepared the conditions at the yards is now at
it's worst so when juris is approached to join the union he doesn't hesitate and soon the
whole family is in the union. In the summer Ona is pregnant and names it Antanas after
Jurgis' father. Ona is forced to goto work without recovering because her income is
needed. This takes a drastic toll on her health. Jurgis then sprains his ankle at work
but, turns out to be a pulled tendon and keep him out of work for almost 3 months this
was extremely hard on the family because he was a very critical income. During his time
recovering he sees that everything is coming apart and him and his family might not make
it. Ona has suffered a great deal from the weather and conditions at the plants. The
following spring Jurgis is able to work again so he hunts for a job since his old one is
lost because again the companies don't care about their workers and if
they can't make it to work cause they are hurt then the company claims no liability and
finds someone to take your job. Kristofaros one of Elzbieta's two crippled son dies of a
bad sausage that he had eaten earlier in the day. Jurgis finally gets a job at a
unhealthy and wretched fertilizer plant, he copes with this job by giving into drinking
to help him forget about some of his problems.
Winter comes again and the all must work extremely hard because of the Holidays. After a
snowstorm one day Ona doesn't return home from work so in panic Jurgis goes out and looks
for her but couldn't find her so he waits at her job and when she returns the day he asks
where she was and she said she couldn't make it home in the weather so she stayed at a
friends house and Jurgis understands and forgets about it. It happened again one day and
Jurgis goes to the friends house but finds that she is not there and never was so he came
home and demanded to know where she had been so she tells him Connor leader of the
loading gang made her have an affair with him or all the women would lose their jobs.
Enraged Jurgis finds Connor at the plant and attacks him which lead him to the police
station he gets a 30 day sentence which is going to be terrible on the family. In Jail
Jurgis meets a man named Jack Duane and gives him his address. Stanislovas
visits him in jail to get money and tell him of the news of the family all is bad. When
he finally gets out he finds out that they lost the house and are staying in the attic of
the widow Jukniene's house. When he gets there Ona is in the middle of delivery and they
send Jurgis out to get a midwife because they can not afford a doctor. He returns with
the midwife and then leaves again to goto a saloon will Ona is giving birth when he
returns he finds that the baby didn't make it and Ona is dying. Jurgis can't cope with
her death and feels very lonely and I believe this is when his character starts to become
dynamic in the morning he gets money and goes to the saloon. The next day he goes to look
for a job and realizes he can't get a job because he is now blacklisted. He then gets a
job at harvester works after a week he loses the job he is at the point of giving up but
he realizes he has a son and keeps going. He then gets a job at a steel mill, it's very
far away so he stay's there during the week and comes home on the weekends. He gets hurt
at his job and can't work for several days which gives him a good time to spend with his
son. He goes back to work and start making plans for the future, when one day he comes
home and finds that Antanas has drowned in a puddle. I believe this is the climax of the
story when
Jurgis feels how could society allow this to happen and how he has nothing left. When he
stows away on a train he tries to leave his past behind he has nothing left and he
doesn't have to worry about anyone but himself now, which allows him to think clearly. He
gets offf in the country and goes from farmhouse to farmhouse getting food and shelter
during this time h is free to think freely and recover from his time in the city. When
winter starts to approach he leaves the country and heads back to Chicago, he gets a job
digging tunnels, he broke his arm a couple of weeks later and goes to the hospital when
he gets out he lost the room he was renting and is once again out on the streets. After
spending what little money he has at saloons. One day he was begging and met a rich man
who was drunk and managed to get a hundred dollar bill by mistake but kept it anyway.
When he tried to get change for it at a bar the bartender on gave him change for a
dollar, the bartender wouldn't give it back so Jurgis attacked which one again landed him
in jail. He met Duane there again and decided to join Duane after his sentence because he
doesn't have a family to worry about anymore. While in jail he goes through a big change
he sees the world as something different then what he used to see it as like there is
isn't
much hope and u have to do for yourself. Jurgis learns all about crime and schemes that
are going on in the city, he goes along on some of them and makes money through
robberies. He then gets a job trying to get people to vote for the republicans and buy
votes which he did sucessfully. Jurgis still having the job at the packing plant goes to
work as a scab during a strike he soon gets put in charge of the killing beds. One night
he was drinking and he stumbled upon Connor he again attacked him and went to jail. He
calls upon a friend to bail him out and finds out that Connor is good friends with Scully
so he has to get out of town and he does. Giving his so called friend all his money to
get out of jail Jurgis has no money left and wanders into a political rally for the
socialist party for heat and shelter. Trying to stay awake so he won't be kicked out, he
fell asleep, and was kicked out from there he goes looking for Marji, Ona's cousin. When
he finds her it's in a brothel and is raided by the police as soon as he gets there so he
goes to the police station with Marji and while in jail he spends time thinking of the
past tragedies and how he left his family behind. He appears in court the next day and is
dismissed. They return the house and Marji tells him about her life now, that she is now
addicted to morphine and is a prostitute while they eat lunch. After lunch Jurgis
goes to find Elzbieta. He can't face her without a job though so he goes to the political
hall that kicked him out before to think about the things that had happened and what
Elzbieta would think about him leaving but he falls asleep again and is woken by a woman
who tells him he should pay attention what the speaker was saying. He starts to listen to
the speaker closely and finding himself agreeing with him. The speaker talks about the
men, woman, and children that where exploited and used by industries and how his party
the socialist will make sure this doesn't happen again and again in the future. He
reaches out to the blue-collar workers who made this society and have no voice in this
city and society where the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer.
Jurgis felt like he was renewed in life and once again he believed his dreams could be
met. After the meeting he goes searching for the speaker who he talks to for a little
then is given to the speaker's friend Ostrinski they go to his house and tell each other
about their lives. Ostrinski explains the beliefs and goals of the socialist party to
Jurgis very carefully he also learns about the Beef Trust and how it works in its corrupt
ways and how the socialist party can stop them. He finally faces Elzbieta and explains to
her the
socialists point of view. He then gets a job as a porter that he got from the owner of
the hotel who is also an active socialist named Hinds. His hotel is the center of
socialist actions and also the place where Jurgis learns about the socialist party. He
starts reading the 'Appeal to Reason' a kind of political newspaper to discourage other
political parties. He now also hands this weekly paper out.
He tries to get Marji to quit her job at the brothel but she wouldn't listen so jurgis
just forgets about it and he starts thinking about what changes he can make in his life
for the better. Before the election Jurgis goes to an important meeting in which he was
invited to, there was a magazine editor there who jurgis thought he would probably have
to tell hi slife story as a working man to support socialist views. He goes and finds the
main speakers are an evangelist named Lucas and the editor Schliemann they go on about
what the socialist party believes in and how things should be, after the meeting Jurgis
felt like a new beginning and the socialist's barely lost in the election which was a
huge victory for them and a loss for wage-slavery.