Andre Hall
David Bush
United States History 17B
6 October 2018
In The Jungle, Jurgis experiences a great amount of hardship. It is fiction, but the story feels real, as he goes through a series of bad luck.
Jurgis is part of a Lithuanian family who moved to Chicago in the early 1900s. They planned on working in the meat packing industry in Packingtown. Jurgis is optimistic, he is planning on marrying Ona, a young and beautiful girl. However, they first must find a job in the meat packing plant which receives thousands of cows and pigs each day that are slaughtered, butchered, and packaged for customers across the world. Fortunately for Jurgis, he is strong, and is hired cleaning up entrails. Jurgis’s spirit was up when he started his work. However, Jurgis began to see how hard it is to get ahead in America. There were shady living conditions and high turnover of workers. Jurgis and Ona finally got married. However, the wedding ended putting his family into even further dept. The working conditions were terrible. The work Jurgis was doing was hard, and he barely had enough to keep his family alive.
Jurgis’s family was not making much money. They bought a house with what they had, but then they found they had to pay interest each month. This forced Ona and Stanislovas, a child, to find work. There living conditions were so harsh, to survive, everyone had to get a job, even children. On top of that, all of the work the family did was still not enough to keep Jurgis’s father alive. Then Elzbetia, Ona’s stepmother, was forced to work in the sausage factory.
Jurgis became a United States citizen. This gave Jurgis voting rights. He then became interested in politics and learning English. Ona then gave birth to a baby boy, Antanas, but sadly Jurgis can only see him on Sundays because of work. Then Jurgis sprang his ankle. This put him out of work for many months. After Jurgis tried to find work, but can only find a job in the fertilizer factory. Ona also became pregnant again, which caused her the family more grief. Ona began not coming home at night. This made Jurgis suspicios, and he confronted Ona. Ona confessed that she’s been sleeping with her boss, Connor to save the family. This is another example of how working conditions were absolutely terrible.
Conners actions toward Ona made Jurgis confront Conner. Jurgis’s actions became violent, and he was placed in jail. To make matters worse, Conners denied any actions he did to Ona to the court. This made Jurgis’s jail time longer. Jurgis did not have any power, even if his intentions were better than Conner’s.
When Jurgis was released from jail, he returned home to see how his family was doing. However, he found his family was not living no more. Jurgis finds that Ona is in labor two months early, but because they cannot afford a doctor, she is having the baby in the home. With the money he can find, Jurgis calls on a midwife. However by the time she arrives, it’s too late and both Ona and the baby die. Once again, Jurgis tried to find work. However he has trouble. Jurgis was blacklisted by all the bosses in the area. This is a way how Jurgis was mistreated. Fortunately, he finds a job in the city at a machine shop, however it then immediately closes down. A stranger then gets Jurgis a job in a steel factory, but he must live away from the family for most of the week to save on travel cost.
One day, when Jurgis returns home, he discovers that Antanas, his young son, is died from drowning in a puddle. This prompts Jurgis to take off and becomes a tramp. He then lives in the country wandering from place to place begging for money. Eventually, Jurgis returns to the city and finds a job mining. However, he gets injured and returns to a life of begging. Jurgis runs into a wealthy young man who gives him a meal and a one hundred dollar bill, but when Jurgis tries to cash it in, he gets swindled by a bartender and is thrown in jail. Jurgis teams up with a man named Duane and enters the world of crime in Chicago by mugging people. As Jurgis sees how corrupted the city is, he is given a special job by the Democrats to strategically help get a republican elected by working a campaign in Packingtown. The campaigning works and the republican wins as planned. When the union and meat packers try to negotiate, there is a strike in Packingtown, which Jurgis uses to his advantage by working and getting a promotion as a boss. The packers begin bringing in workers from around the country until the strike ends. However, when Jurgis runs into Ona’s old boss that took advantage of her, he beats him and is thrown in jail. Because the boss has connections, the situation is bad for Jurgis, but a friend bails him out and Jurgis runs away. Jurgis resorts to begging on the streets and bombs into an old friend who tells him where Marija is living. Jurgis visits Majira and realizes that she has is a prostitute to support the rest of the family. However, Marija’s place gets raided and Jurgis is arrested with the rest of them. After Jurgis is released, he stumbles into a socialist meeting and is inspired by the words of the speaker. Jurgis is introduced to a man named Ostrinski who explains the principles of socialism, which Jugis begins to understand based on his experiences in Packingtown. Jurgis finds a job as a porter at a hotel. And as time goes on, Jurgis becomes more and more involved in the Socialist movement. In the end, as the upcoming election approaches, the Socialist party leaders grow more hopeful, that there influence will continue grow, especially in Chicago.
Jurgis experienced extreme hardship. He was forced to rob people just to stay alive. There definitely could be many people today who are in a similar situations to Jurgis. People who have had a series of bad luck. If Jurgis experienced good working conditions, his family would have likely would have lived longer, and they would be more successful.