Jungle Essay Research Paper Upton Sinclair

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Jungle Essay, Research Paper

Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle is the tale of a Lithuanian immigrant, Jurgis Rudkus,

and his family. Jurgis and his family move to the United States in the middle of

the Industrial Revolution, only to find themselves ill-equipped for the

transition in the workplace and in society in general. Jurgis faces countless

social injustices, and through a series of such interactions, the theme of the

book is revealed: the support of socialism over capitalism as an economic and

social structure. Jurgis learns soon after transplanting his family that he

alone cannot earn enough to support his entire family, in spite of the intensity

of his valiant efforts to work harder. Soon his wife and the rest of his family

are working as well, all attempting to chip in to cover family expenses.

However, such exposure proves itself to be too dangerous and detrimental to the

Rudkuses. Jurgis becomes hardened by his negative experiences as he realizes

that, in a capitalist society like the one he was living in, there is no

justice. Hard work is not justly rewarded, and often times corruption is

rewarded in its place. Through and through, he sees that capitalist life is not

fair. Soon he is injured on the job and is forced to stay home and out of work

while his mangled foot heals. Jurgis is sidelined from work for two months, and

upon his return he finds himself replaced by another worker. Desperate for a

job, he takes a dreaded position at the glue factory. Hi wife is pregnant, his

family is working themselves to the breaking point, and the bills are getting

the best of them. Jurgis turns to drinking. Things get worse. He learns that his

wife has been forced to have sex with her boss. Jurgis, in a rage, attacks the

man at the Packing house and is arrested for battery. He spends a month in jail,

at which time he meets Jack Duane, a character who introduces him to the

"easy" life: a life of crime. Within a month of the time Jurgis gets

out of jail, everyone has lost their jobs and the house they struggled so hard

to keep is lost. Soon Ona is having a child, and because of the lack of funds to

pay for proper care for her, both she and the child die in labor. His son

drowns, many family members have died and the remainder are scattered with no

semblance of the family they once were. Jurgis takes to the country to become a

tramp, but as winter approaches he knows he must return to the city – to

"the jungle" – once again. Jurgis becomes a beggar and a vagrant.

After receiving $100 dollars from Freddie Jones, the son of rich Old Man Jones,

he goes into a bar to get change and gets into another altercation, this time

with the bartender, and is again arrested. Soon he turns to Jack Duane to enter

the life of crime he had foreshadowed. Isolated from any remainders of his

family, he begins to live the easy life of shortcuts and crooked paths. However,

another chance encounter with Connor, his wife’s boss and seducer, brings out

his true self again, the man who stands up for his moral convictions, even when

it harms him to do so. After beating the man again, he is arrested and jumps

bail. By pure luck he wanders into a socialist meeting while looking for food

and/or a place to sleep. There his life begins a change in earnest. He learns at

that meeting what the working class can do to make a difference. Soon after he

reunites with his daughter, Marjia, a drug-addicted prostitue struggling to

support the family’s remains. The story closes with a happy socialist ending:

Jurgis gets a job at a hotel run by socialists and seals his fate. He goes on to

become an avid socialist and he, the fighter, and Marjia, the victim, pick up

the pieces of their lives to make everything better. I feel that this book is a

ridiculously oversimplified look at socialism and a very sinister look at

capitalism. While I applaud Sinclair’s efforts to illustrate the injustices of

capitalism, socialism does not hold the simple solution to everything like it

seemingly did for Jurgis in The Jungle. In truth, corruption can be found in any

and every type of economic and social-political structure in existence ever

throughout history and in the future. A solution to this problem? I can’t answer

that one, but I know this much: socialism is not the easy answer he makes it out

to be.