The Jungle Thesis

Lives of Immigrants During the Industrial Revolution The Industrial Revolution lead to a huge increase in the number of people immigrating to America to start fresh and work for enormous wealth and success. This American Dream was the dream of many immigrants, but it was often crushed shortly after their arrival. Alcohol, poverty, and people in positions of authority caused a lot of problems for these immigrants, but very little was done to help them. Alcohol was usually more of a self-inflicted issue, but there were some cases of alcohol being snuck into substances like medications that shouldn’t have alcohol. Poverty on the other hand was not something that anybody chose. Poverty was inflicted on many immigrants from people who took

People in positions of authority were largely inflictors of poverty, because they took advantage of immigrants and their lack of familiarity with their surroundings, as well as paying them far less than was required for a decent lifestyle. Upton Sinclair’s book The Jungle depicted each of these issues with great detail and clarity, as well as many other issues that plagued immigrants. The book takes place in the Chicago Packingtown district, the heart of the meatpacking industry. This is a rough line of work to be in, and the lives of those immigrants who kept the industry afloat were often miserable. Sinclair went so far as to describe these immigrants as “... victims of a relentless fate, cornered, trapped, in the grip of destruction” (Sinclair 86). All throughout the book, these immigrant’s suffering was brought into the public eye. Upton Sinclair’s book, The Jungle, describes how alcoholism, poverty, and people in positions of

In Packingtown, where the story takes place poverty is around every corner, and effects immigrants from all over who came to Chicago for a better life, but were sorely disappointed. This especially affected Ona, Marija, and Jurgis. When Ona gets pregnant a second time, she is already very ill from the pills she’s been taking and the womb-trouble she still suffers from with her last pregnancy, but the family can’t afford a midwife to assist her throughout the pregnancy. When Jurgis finally sweeps in and begs Madame Haupt, a well known and expensive midwife, she still isn’t in time to save Ona. And she dies shortly after the birth of the baby. Marija is affected in many ways throughout the course of the book, but one of the most significant examples is towards the end of the book, when the family has run out of money, and she is forced to become a prostitute. She has tried everything, but this is the only consistent income that is available to her after all of her suffering, there is no where else to turn. She came to America for a better life for er and her family, especially young Ona, but by the end of the story, poverty has changed her, and she realizes that they all would have had a much easier time if they had let Ona continue to see Phil Connor. Jurgis is affected by poverty all throughout the course of the book, but at one point turns to begging. He has tried everything, but he has run out of money,