Data Bases • Custom Term Papers • Free Term Papers • Free Research Papers • Free Essays • Free Book Reports • Plagiarism? Links • Top 100 Term Paper Sites • Top 25 Essay Sites • Top 50 Essay Sites • Search 97,000 Papers @ DirectEssays.com • Search 101,000 Papers @ ExampleEssays.com • Search 90,000 Papers @ MegaEssays.com Free Essays • Term Paper Sites • Chuck III's Free Essays • Free College Essays • TermPaperSites.com • My Term Papers • Get Free Essays • Essay World • Planet Papers	Search Lots of Essays Back to Subjects - Book Reports The Jungle book review The Jungle book review The Jungle, by Upton Sinclair, is the story of an immigrant’s life in industrialized America. By writing this book Upton Sinclair is attempting to show people that Socialism is superior to Capitalism. Whether Sinclair’s views on the matter are right or wrong are not important. What is of value is whether or not Sinclair does a good job of convincing the reader of his opinions and ideas. In that sense Sinclair does an excellent job and inevitably succeeds. Upton Sinclair is a convincing writer because he creates characters that the reader can sympathize with and he allows them to be hurt and torn apart by an unforgiving society. He writes about every horrific thing that could happen to one person and says that in a Socialist society these kinds of things would never happen. He is basically presenting to the reader every terrible thing that can happen in a Capitalist society and then showing all the great things that will come to be in a Socialist society. Sinclair wrote all this because he believed one person really could change society, and he did just that, becoming a muckraker in the process. He wanted to show how people were being used like animals to make the industries rich while the workers were thrown away when they were no longer needed. The Jungle depicts the life of Jurgis Rudkus as he decides to leave everything he has in Lithuania and move to America with the woman he loves and some members of his and her family. They make it to America and are overwhelmed by all the new things they see. Things begin well for Jurgis; he quickly finds a job, as do the other family members. The family saves up enough money to buy a house and Jurgis and Ona get married but their good fortune does not last long. The family finds out from one of their neighbors that their “dream” home is really an old house that has been repainted. They learn about the hidden costs of the house which include interest and taxes. This is terrible news, for the family has yet to pay off the wedding costs. Jurgis, always strong, is not distraught. He simply looks to the future and thinks to himself, “I will work harder,” just as he says whenever things look bad. Jurgis becomes even more committed to supporting the family when Ona and Jurgis’ first child arrives. They name the baby boy Antanas, after Jurgis’ father. Unfortunately Jurgis sprains his ankle at work one day and when he is finally able to return there is no place for him any longer. He is forced to work in the fertilizer mill, the worst place a man can work. Now that things are becoming so difficult, Jurgis begins to drink as well as grow apart from Ona. After coming home late a number of times Jurgis finds out that Ona has been raped by her boss, Connor. In a mad rage, Jurgis runs to Ona’s workplace and severely beats Connor. Jurgis is sent to jail and sentenced to thirty days in prison. This would not have been so devastating except for the fact that the whole family loses their jobs because of the word spread by Connor. There is nothing he can do but sit in his cell and wonder as the family struggles without him. When Jurgis is finally released from prison, he walks twenty miles back to Packingtown only to find that the house has been sold and Ona is giving birth two months early in a dirty boarding house. Sadly, the midwife Jurgis begs to help him can neither save Ona nor the baby. Jurgis is reminded that his son is depending on him, but he knows he has been blacklisted by Connor and cannot find work. Luckily, one of the children meets a social worker that helps Jurgis find a job at a steel mill. Just as Jurgis begins to settle into a new life, he returns home one day to find his only reason for living, his Antanas, has died in a freak accident. This is the final straw for Jurgis. Stricken with grief and horror, Jurgis jumps on the first rail car he finds and rides out into the country in an attempt to put all that has happened behind him. Jurgis returns to the city when winter arrives and finds a job digging a tunnel. Jurgis suffers an accident while working and is sent to the hospital where he spends his Christmas, only to be released in the dead of winter. Jurgis is forced to resort to begging and living in saloons. He happens to find a drunken man who invites him to his home where he is treated to a huge feast and given a hundred-dollar bill before he is kicked out of the house by the butler. As Jurgis attempts to change the hundred-dollar bill in a saloon, he is cheated out of his money and is arrested after he attacks the bartender. He is sent to jail and meets a fellow convict by the name of Jack Duane. Jurgis decides that a life of crime is the only way to survive anymore and as soon as he is released from prison he meets up with Jack and they become partners in crime. Jurgis begins meeting the political and criminal underground of Chicago and is eventually introduced to Mike Scully. Scully helps Jurgis find work and Jurgis becomes one of Scully’s “friends.” During the chaos of an ensuing strike in the stockyards, Jurgis meets Connor and attempts to kill him again. Jurgis is sent to jail again and finds that Connor is a good friend of Scully and that the only thing Jurgis can do is leave town. Jurgis heads out to the other side of town and is forced to beg for work again. Jurgis happens to run into someone who remembers him and tells him where he can find the rest of his family. He finds Marija, the cousin of Ona, in a whorehouse and learns she has been forced to work as a prostitute. They talk briefly about what has happened since he left, and he leaves shortly there after. While walking Jurgis finds a political meeting which he enters to stay warm. He begins to listen to the speaker and realizes that this speaker is talking about something that matters to Jurgis. Jurgis, after a brief conversation with the speaker, learns that he is a Socialist and he is directed to Ostrinski, a Lithuanian Socialist. Ostrinski and Jurgis talk all night about Socialism and home in Lithuania. Jurgis soon gets a job as a porter in a hotel and begins to live with his old family again. He finds out that the owner of the hotel is a Socialist who frequently begins debates with guests about Socialism with which Jurgis is pleased to learn. Jurgis tries to get Marija out of the brothel but she refuses because she addicted to morphine and knows she can never leave. Later Jurgis attends a meeting with a magazine editor in which he learns more about Socialism. The Socialists want to bring the larger lower class out of poverty and give everyone a better life. By eliminating inefficiency in the work place through technology, people will have to work less and be able to live better. The Socialist party goes on to do very well in the election and the book ends with the chant of, “Chicago will be ours!” I think The Jungle really sheds a lot of light on the life of the workingman during the American Industrialization Era. It was very hard just to simply survive in big cities during the turn of the century because of the control the industries had and the lack of unions and government involvement. Life as a rich person in control was great, but the only way to attain that position was to cheat and lie and steal your way up to the top. The reason the characters in The Jungle could not make it was because they were honest, hard working people. To succeed in “the jungle” one had to be dishonest and cheat and steal. Sinclair is trying to say that a Capitalist society is run by dishonesty and crime and that if someone tries to live an honest life, they will die. By saying that only in a Capitalist society could all these things happen, he is showing the reader that the superior alternative is Socialism, which will eliminate all the terrible problems of Capitalism. He is using all the grotesque events earlier in the book to show the reader that Socialism will allow one to escape from all of that. Everything that could go wrong for one person did go wrong in this novel. Jurgis was hit with every possible calamity, yet he was still able to overcome it all when he found Socialism. I think Sinclair did a superb job of supporting his idea. I believe this because he created a character that made me sympathetic for in a Capitalist society and then overjoyed when that character rises up and makes a new life as a Socialist. I cannot say that I would go out and join the Socialist party right now, but I do have a much better understanding of Socialism and how it is a good idea. I feel that I understand what Sinclair is trying to say and I also feel that Socialism was a good idea in Jurgis’ time. The idea was needed then to keep people motivated and to bring about change in a corrupt institution. I really felt affected when I read about the children being sent off to work at such young ages. The conditions they worked in were so terrible and it’s hard to believe I could work in them let alone my little brother. I could not believe what people had to do just to survive, especially compared to our lives now. At the time this story takes place I believe Socialism was superior, mainly because it so much seems like Capitalism today. I believe this is a very valid book for depicting what America used to be, what we have come to, and what we hope to be in the future so as not to let the work of Jurgis and others go to waste. Bibliography: Word Count: 1733
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