Future Resolutions In Upton Sinclair's The Jungle

All over the world, individuals would want to alter something in their past for a more enriched life. One’s precedent actions will inevitably bear an impact on future resolutions. In Upton Sinclair’s novel, The Jungle, the main character, Jurgis Rudkus, departed Lithuania, with his beloved and her family, for a more prosperous life in America, but after countless of trials, ended up destitute. His decisions throughout the tribulations will determine the outcome in a world full of adversity. However, how Jurgis acted on one of his ordeals engendered a great burden that he still bears in the present, and that this link into the past depicts Sinclair’s theme of corruption. Jurgis’s handling of the situation generated a larger consequence that

When Ona, Jurgis’s wife, was confronted about not coming home twice, she discloses that she was forced to copulate with her boss, Phil Connor, in order to salvage their jobs. She pleads and reasons with Jurgis to understand why she followed through with it. However, Jurgis acted impulsively and searched for the offender. Finding him, Jurgis assaulted Conner, which landed him in jail for over a month. This created a chain of events, in which the first implications included losing their home and moving to a family friend’s, Ona becoming sick and dying from their second child’s premature birth, and being blacklisted by employers. In the following months, Jurgis was able to recoup, but was again a broken man due to his first son, Antanas, dying in the canal being built in front of the house they moved into. Reaching his breaking point, Jurgis escaped from the confinements of his life, leaving the family to fend for themselves. Coming back home after being impoverished yet again, he discovers from Marija that the family now is living off of the wages of her prostitution, and that little Stanislovas had been eaten to death by rats. Her apathy in describing the situation propelled Jurgis to think “[he] was a fool for caring… what a madman he had been!.. and now, today… [he]

Individuals who want to be placed as officials buy votes and form alliances with others in power, creating an unethical network that controls the working class; the latter in return are exploited for selfish gains of the former. When Jurgis explains the incident and who he attacked, which led him in jail, to his friend, Harper, the other declares, “Then you’re in for it... He’s one of Scully’s biggest men—he’s a member of the War-Whoop League, and they talked of sending him to the legislature… he can send you to Joliet, if he wants to!” (275). Connor has the power to direct one’s fate, for the better or worse, without needing any accounts to prove it. He can claim anything he would want about someone who’s lower in power, and it would stick to the receiver wherever s/he goes, sabotaging their future. Ona is the first one to be subjected into Connor’s corruption; her morality has been debased, for he is exploiting her body for his carnal desires in exchange for letting her family be. Her integrity would not be restored, and people would regard her differently. She won’t certainly be the last one to be debauched by Connor’s corrupted mind. Furthermore, Connor used his influence to the detriment of Jurgis’s chances of keeping his or getting a job. His reputation as a worker has been marred, that no employers who have links with Connor would