THE JUNGLE
By: Upton Sinclair
Upton Sinclair starts the book off by introducing the setting of two immigrants of America from Lithuania the country north-east to Poland. The two are about to get married and Sinclair gives examples of the traditional Lithuanian customs of marriages. He also shows how it is difficult for Jurgis and Ona to keep alive the traditions being immigrants in America living in Chicago. The couple relying on gifts of money from the guest as a tradition doesnt hold their end of the deal and Jurgis and Ona dont end up with enough money to start a married life, or even enough to pay for the reception they threw. Jurgis wants to live the American dream and gets hired by the foreman of Brown and Company mainly for Jurgis size and strength.
Flash Back-Jurgis had a job before this sweeping the floor of a slaughtering house for pigs. Some of the family members find work and Jurgis lets Ona his wife and Elzbieta (Onas aunt,) do not have to work. An agent trying to trick the family into renting a house infuriates Jurgis, but later is worked out with Jurgis talking to another lawyer and the family gets a decent deal with the house. Jurgis father Antanas has a bad experience with a meat packing job and Marijas job has an unethical practice when Marija takes the place of a lady who had worked there for 15 years, though Marija did not know this. Flash Back Ends.
Winter comes and the couple has a hard time dealing with Ona constantly being sick and Antanas dying. The family has such a hard time, which Jurgis cant even give Antanas a proper burial. Jurgis joins the union and revives his hope for success. Jurgis discovers that at a fertilizer plant if a man where to fall in and it were impossible to get him he would end up in the final product to sell.
The winter ends and spring comes along as does Ona getting pregnant. She later give birth to their son Antanas and returns to work a week later so she will not lose her job. She never fully recovers and stays in a state for the rest of her life of never really being healthy from returning to work too soon. Before they know it winter is back and Jurgis loses 3 weeks of work due to a sprained ankle. The only good thing to come from this is Jurgis spending time with his son.
Later on Jurgis gets a midwife to help for free but he leaves the house and when he returns he finds the baby is dead and Ona opens her eyes to see Jurgis and dies. He finds out the Marija becomes a prostitute and is addicted to morphine. He goes to a political meeting and becomes convinced to succeed in America and to defeat the almighty defeat.
Socialism becomes Jurgis fuel and he meets a man who gets him a job as a porter at a socialite hotel and he learns more and more of the art of socialism. He meets a former philosophy professor who gets him into a party of socialists or rather democrats who try to fix Packingtown and the book ends with the crowd shouting Chicago will be ours!
THE END
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