FREE ESSAY ON UPTON SINCLAIR'S THE JUNGLE

UPTON SINCLAIR'S THE JUNGLE

The Jungle by Upton Sinclair
Upton Sinclair's The Jungle is the tale of a Lithuanian immigrant, Jurgis Rudkus, and his
family. Jurgis and his family move to the United States in the middle of the Industrial
Revolution, only to find themselves ill-equipped for the transition in the workplace and
in society in general. Jurgis faces countless social injustices, and through a series of
such interactions, the theme of the book is revealed: the support of socialism over
capitalism as an economic and social structure.
Jurgis learns soon after transplanting his family that he alone cannot earn enough to
support his entire family, in spite of the intensity of his valiant efforts to work
harder. Soon his wife and the rest of his family are working as well, all attempting to
chip in to cover family expenses. However, such exposure proves itself to be too
dangerous and detrimental to the Rudkuses. Jurgis becomes hardened by his negative
experiences as he realizes that, in a capitalist society like the one he was living in,
there is no justice. Hard work is not justly rewarded, and often times corruption is
rewarded in its place. Through and through, he sees that capitalist life is not fair.
Soon he is injured on the job and is forced to stay home and out of work while his
mangled foot heals.
Jurgis is sidelined from work for two months, and upon his return he finds himself
replaced by another worker. Desperate for a job, he takes a dreaded position at the glue
factory. Hi wife is pregnant, his family is working themselves to the breaking point, and
the bills are getting the best of them. Jurgis turns to drinking. Things get worse. He
learns that his wife has been forced to have sex with her boss. Jurgis, in a rage,
attacks the man at the Packing house and is arrested for battery. He spends a month in
jail, at which time he meets Jack Duane, a character who introduces him to the easy life:
a life of crime. Within a month of the time Jurgis gets out of jail, everyone has lost
their jobs and the house they struggled so hard to keep is lost.
Soon Ona is having a child, and because of the lack of funds to pay for proper care for
her, both she and the child die in labor. His son drowns, many family members have died
and the remainder are scattered with no semblance of the family they once were. Jurgis
takes to the country to become a tramp, but as winter approaches he knows he must return
to the city - to the jungle - once again.
Jurgis becomes a beggar and a vagrant. After receiving $100 dollars from Freddie Jones,
the son of rich Old Man Jones, he goes into a bar to get change and gets into another
altercation, this time with the bartender, and is again arrested. Soon he turns to Jack
Duane to enter the life of crime he had foreshadowed. Isolated from any remainders of his
family, he begins to live the easy life of shortcuts and crooked paths. However, another
chance encounter with Connor, his wife's boss and seducer, brings out his true self
again, the man who stands up for his moral convictions, even when it harms him to do so.
After beating the man again, he is arrested and jumps bail. By pure luck he wanders into
a socialist meeting while looking for food and/or a place to sleep. There his life begins
a change in earnest.
He learns at that meeting what the working class can do to make a difference. Soon after
he reunites with his daughter, Marjia, a drug-addicted prostitue struggling to support
the family's remains. The story closes with a happy socialist ending: Jurgis gets a job
at a hotel run by socialists and seals his fate. He goes on to become an avid socialist
and he, the fighter, and Marjia, the victim, pick up the pieces of their lives to make
everything better.
I feel that this book is a ridiculously oversimplified look at socialism and a very
sinister look at capitalism. While I applaud Sinclair's efforts to illustrate the
injustices of capitalism, socialism does not hold the simple solution to everything like
it seemingly did for Jurgis in The Jungle. In truth, corruption can be found in any and
every type of economic and social-political structure in existence ever throughout
history and in the future. A solution to this problem? I can't answer that one, but I
know this much: socialism is not the easy answer he makes it out to be.