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 remainders 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 prostitute 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. While Sinclair's efforts to illustrate the injustices of capitalism are commendable, socialism does not hold the simple solution ...
