“The Jungle” was the novel I chose to read for this final section. This book was 359 pages long with 31 chapters inside. From beginning to end, this book had detail unlike any I have ever read in the past year. The way this novel was structured was a one-sided view of how the industrial age was horrible to live in. Sinclair hated this time and used this book to show how bad it really was.
Two very major characters in the book happen to be a couple. Their names are Jurgis Rudkus and Ona Lukoszaite. The couple meets in Lithuania, where the book begins, and later moves to Chicago in search of a better life.
Jurgis is a young Lithuanian immigrant who is well-minded. He is very eager to find work and be a good husband. His main purpose in life is to protect his love, Ona. Jurgis is very determined to make the best of everything and believes that he will have a happy ending. He is sadly mistaken when he finds out how hard life can actually be. His wife dies while having her second baby. He becomes depressed and somewhat crazed.
Throughout the book, Jurgis gets many jobs, such as working at the meat house, the steel mill, the fertilizer plant, digging holes, and as a porter. Also, throughout the book, we come to find out that Jurgis has a bad temper. Many times in the book, he gets into fights and is eventually hauled to jail each time. Luckily, Jurgis is able to land on his feet after every obstacle. As for Jurgis’s counterpart Ona, her story is a bit different.
Ona is basically her husband’s opposite. She has blue eyes and fair skin, he has dark hair and tan skin. She is small and tiny for her age, whereas he is a huge monster. She has education, and Jurgis has none. While living in America with Jurgis, her life is a rough one at that. She has many distractions in her way. She must walk in the rain to a job that she hates. After she returns to work early after childbirth, she grows sick. We later find out that she has tuberculosis. Although too poor to get doctors, she strives on.
Some of her strange behavior around the house is attributed to her secret life and a mistress for her boss. He takes advantage of her, telling her he will fire the whole family if she does not do as she is told. Ona later gets pregnant at the age of 18 with her second child. Because of her sickly state, she dies while trying to conceive the baby. After her death, many people grieve, one of them being Ona’s stepmother.
Ona’s stepmother’s name is Elizbieta Lukoszaite. She is the link to the past. She is the one who keeps the sense and morals of the whole family. Elizbieta is the one who insists on a traditional wedding and a proper funeral. She is the one that keeps hope alive. Another inspiration is Marija. Marija Berczynskas is the one with the best bets of surviving in America. She has many great traits that set her apart from the others. She is a leader and conqueror. But we come to find out that all isn’t what it seems to be.
The main setting in this book is in Chicago, Illinois, between 1900 and 1904. Most of the book takes place here. The setting of this city is a good one because Chicago is one of many places where many immigrants went when they came to this country. Another place where the book is told is Lithuania. Lithuania is where the families originate from. There is where Jurgis falls in love with Ona and where Onas father dies. In Lithuania iswhere the decision was made to move to America in the first place.
The book starts off in Lithuania days before the fair. At the fair, Jurgis is told by his father that he must sell two of his horses. At the fair is where Jurgis meets Ona. At the moment of sight, Jurgis falls head over heels for her, love at first sight. There is a problem here though: Ona is fourteen and Jurgis is close to twenty-five years old.
Because of their age, Ona’s father will not let him have her. After the fair, he goes home in disappointment. The next time he sees her, her father is now dead, his farm is sold, and Ona’s family is in poverty. Still, the only thing that kept Jurgis from marrying Ona is Ona’s stepmother, Elzbieta.
Since Ona’s family is going into poverty, Jonas, Elizbieta’s brother, suggests that they move to America to find a better future. Later that week, they all set out to Chicago in search of a new life. Ona’s whole family goes along with Jurgis and his father. Once in Chicago, the first order of business was to find shelter and work.
Jurgis found a job as a sweeper in a meat-packing plant. Ona was given a job sewing covers onto hams. Marija found work as a can painter. Even little Stanislovas got a job placing empty cans under jets of lard for five cents an hour. With everyone working this way, they were able to save up enough money for the wedding.
The wedding that took place was not cheerful. The pressures of work, poverty, and sickness made their spirits grow weak. When winter came around, the nights grew cold, and soon Jurgis’s father passed away. He worked out a funeral that wouldn’t make them go bankrupt. A couple of winters passed, and things got harder and harder.
Ona had a baby boy and harmed her health by going to work too early. A short time later, Ona got pregnant again. Soon Jurgis discovers that Ona is having an affair with her boss, Phil Connor. She is having an affair to keep her job because he threatens to fire the whole family. When Jurgis finds out about this, he nearly kills Connor.
Because of the beating, Jurgis is taken to jail. After the release from jail, Jurgis finds out that the family was evicted from their house. They move back to the lodging house where they first moved to. Then Jurgis finds Ona and tries to have an abortion, but to no avail. Both Ona and the baby die. Now since Jurgis has his first son, he gets a job and tries to support him. After nine days, he is laid off.
His son accidentally drowns and dies. Jurgis becomes a hobo and turns his back on Chicago. When he finally comes back, he gets a new job digging tunnels. An on-the-job injury lands him in the hospital. When he recovers, he makes his way to a bar where he gets drunk and beats up the bartenders. He goes to jail again.
After his bail is posted, he gets a job as a Foreman for the original company he worked for. While working there, he beats up Phil Connor for a second time. Again, he goes to jail. After his bail is posted for the last time, he becomes a bum. When on the streets, he runs into an old friend. He tells Jurgis the address of Marija. He soon finds out that she is a prostitute. He tries to make her give up that profession, but to no avail. After he leaves in disappointment, he lands a new job as aporter for a major hotel. Elzbieta and her children move in with him and the book shortlyends.
A literary device used in this book is flashbacks. In chapter one, we begin in Chicago, and in chapter two, we flash back to Lithuania. It is here where we learn details about the background of the main characters, including Jurgis, Ona, and the rest of her family. When we are brought back here, we end up comparing the two different worlds, the peasant world in Lithuania and the industrially developed world of Chicago.
I think the author’s main idea in this book was to show how awful it was to live in the industrial age, and how incredibly hard it was to suffer through all the hardships that came with it. Sinclair tried to show sympathy to everyone that had to go through it, and he did a very good job in this book. He accomplished his goal. Upton Sinclair’s style is bold, he is very straightforward with his writing. Sinclair describes everything to get his point across.
An example is the belching smokestacks and the smell of rotting garbage. He goes to great lengths to prove his point of how terrible it was to live back then. Another example is when he describes the slaughtering of a hog in chapter three. The scene is very disgusting and is made into a point. The point was that immigrants back then were led to slaughter just as the animals were when they came to America.
