Summary Of The Jungle By Upton Sinclair

In The Jungle by Upton Sinclair, Ona Lukoszaite and Jurgis Rudkus, two Lithuanian immigrants who have arrived in Chicago, are getting married. They hold their veselija, or wedding feast, in Packingtown, Chicago because it is the center of the meat-packing indusrty. The highlight of the celebration is the acziavimas, a traditional Lithuanian dance. Each guest help the couple pay for the wedding which can cost up to three hundred dollars- more than a years paycheck for many of the guests. Some though dont contribute and just attend for the free food and drinks. Ona notices that many people are doing this and she worries about the cost of the reception, but Jurgis reassures her that they will find some way to pay the bill. He decides to work harder

She agrees to attend a political meeting with him somethimes. Jurgis finds a job as a porter in a small hotel that pays thirty dollars a month plus board. Tommy Hinds, Jugis's new boss, is a well- know socialist speaker and is thrilled that Jurgis is a comrade. Hinds urges Jurgis to describe the awful filth of the meat-packing plants along with the real recepies for tinned meats and sausages. Jurgis takes up the socialist cause with a passion. He learns all about the political and economic systems of power in America. When he cannot sway people to socialism, he becomes frustrated. He attempts to persuade Marija to leave prostitution, but she says she cannot because she is addicted to morphine and she plans to remain a prostitute for the rest of her life. He attends a meeting with a magazine editor who opposes socialism, but had agreed to listen to some proponents of the movement. In the end of the novel, a spirited speaker at a political meeting urges socialists to continue fighting because the victory is not yet won, encouraging them with the words, " Chicago will be ours!"
My personal opinion about The Jungle by Upton Sinclair is that is is an adventurous, but depressing tale about how drastically ones life can change in an instant. Also it shows that n=no matter how bad your life seems, there is always a way to make it better. After Jurgis's wife and son died he fell in to a terrible depression and tried to drink away his grief, but socialism for the most part pulled him out and gave him something to live for. He did everything he could for his family. This book has some dull moments and its moving moments. Overall, I think it was an excellent novel to