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Poverty In Upton Sinclair's The Jungle

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Families that are poor or have a low income are more likely to commit crimes for the purpose of their own needs to survive. “It is a fact that neighborhoods where the poor are concentrated are more prone to high crime rates, and poor residents are the most common victims of crimes” (1). The best explanation for this is that poorer people have the same needs as a regular middle-class citizen. The poor citizens need certain things to help him or her live a healthy life, such as healthcare, food stamps, and more employment options. One may argue that healthcare is too expensive and that food stamps have been taken away from many people. It is also extremely difficult to get a well-paying job in order to pay for housing, healthcare, and food. The lack of healthcare, food stamps, and well-paying jobs can result in people turning towards crime because of issues such as mental health, physical health, and employment options. One reason that people turn to crime is because of the lack of healthcare. Even when healthcare is available to people, a large portion of them are not able to …show more content…

Sinclair bases these struggles on things that happen to Jurgis and his family. One example that the author describes is how thousands of men wait outside the workplace just to get a chance at a job. “All day long the gates of the packing houses were besieged by starving and penniless men; they came, literally, by the thousands every single morning, fighting with each other for a chance for life…. Sometimes their faces froze, sometimes their feet and their hands; sometimes they froze all together— but still they came, for they had no other place to go” (Sinclair 92). Another example the author displays is when Ona, Jurgis’s wife, dies after giving birth. If Jurgis had healthcare or enough money to pay for a real doctor, Ona may have survived (Sinclair chapter

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Every crisis Jurgis’s family encountered was primarily caused by money which the factory owner, the real estate, the doctor, and even the bartender fed on by taking advantage of the poor people. In the freezing winter, Jurgis himself lose his strength and became a wounded animal physically and mentally. Indeed, many times in the novel, Sinclair symbolized a human with a wounded animal, “…plunging like a wounded buffalo, puffing and snorting in rage” (75), “…helpless as a wounded animal, target of unseen enemies” (92), “…like a wounded animal in the forest; …forced to compete with his enemies upon the unequal term” (157). The same fate went with every other member of the family, especially Ona, she was always described as fragile as hunted prey as such she usually found herself in a position she struggles to help her family. However, she was full of love and support for her husband; it was not exaggerated to say she was the mental healing for Jurgis and a treasure that he swore to protect.

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