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20th Century Immigrants In Upton Sinclair's The Jungle

1326 Words6 Pages

Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle is an American novel classic. This book provides a lens into the life of 20th century immigrants working in poor conditions throughout industrialization. Sinclair set out to expose the harsh conditions that these poor immigrants had to live in. By doing so, he wanted to show that not only was the meatpacking industry vile, but also wanted to show that capitalism doesn’t work. Sinclair thought that communism benefits everyone.
This story starts off as Ona and Jurgis, two Lithuanian immigrants, set off for America. They are engaged and intend to wed when they arrive in America. Once they get to Chicago they plan to have a traditional Lithuanian wedding. Ona becomes very worried about the cost of the wedding but Jurgis tells his newly wed bride that she should not worry. He will simply work harder to get the money (Sinclair, p. 18). Unfortunately for Jurgis, this is a lot …show more content…

Jurgis finds them living in a boarding house. In the boarding Ona is giving childbirth prematurel., Jurgis scrambles to find a midwife. Jurgis finds one and convinces her to do the job for only one dollar and 25 cents. Unfortunately Ona and the baby die (Sinclair, p. 203-204). Jurgis takes three dollars from the kids who sold papers that morning and goes to the saloon to drink away his sorrows. Jurgis finds no luck getting a job. Evntually he meets a rich woman and tells her his story. The woman gives Jurgis a letter of recommendation for a steel mill that her fiancé owns. This automatically gurantees Jurgis the job (Sinclair, p. 208-209). Jurgis’s son gives him hope and has been Jurgis's driving force since he was born. The distance between Chicago and the steel mill make it hard for him to see his son Jurgis perseveres anyway. Then one weekend when Jurgis returns home from the steel mill he finds out that his son had drown in a mud puddle. (Sinclair, p.

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