The Jungle

A detailed Summary of The Jungle

The novel The Jungle, by Upton Sinclair, focuses on the Progressive Movement in the United States in a journey through the life of the main character Jurgis Rudkus who came America from Lithuania in search of the American Dream of freedom and fortune. After arriving in America, Jurgis and Ona go to Packingtown, an area of Chicago, to find work. Once at Jurgis begins work, he is quickly subjected to horrible working conditions and very low wages that are very often swindled away by those in power. Ona and her second child both died during labor, and Jurgis' son Antanas die shortly after.

Jurgis spends time in jail on several occasions for fighting, one his second sentence he meets an experienced criminal, Jack Duane, in prison and upon his release he takes up a life of crime. During this time he beings to understand the connection between crime, law enforcement, politics, and business. Jurgis begins to get involved in politics until his violent temper once again causes him to get in a fight with Phil Connor; though this time he is not sentenced to jail, he instead looses all of his current power and means of obtaining money because of Connor's political connections. Jurgis ends up back on the streets until one day when he

Upton Sinclair's novel The Jungle is a good example of "big business" and the lack of concern for their workers ad the rest of society. Many of the concepts in this book back up what was discussed in lecture. In The Jungle the main goal of the Socialist party was to end the corruption of the Beef Trust. One quote that describes the power that "big business" had during this time period was, "In the national capital it had the power to falsify government reports; it violated the rebate laws, and when an investigation was threatened it burned its books and sent its criminal agents across the country." (312) During this time period there was not a great deal of government regulation on businesses, and "big business" was able to take advantage of not only the workers, but also the American public. Much of the meat that was sold to the public was sub par, in the worlds of the tour guide who gave Jurgis a tour of the plant in Packingtown, "They use everything about the hot except the squeal." (38)

The Jungle has a continuing theme of the power and corruption "big business" and the way the workers and consumers were exploited by them. The main focus of the book was the powerful Beef Trust, which was later brought down due to investigations after The Jungle was published. This book exposed the public to the behind the scenes actions that took place at the meat packing facilities in Chicago. This created a public outcry, and investigations into the Beef Trust, which eventually brought upon and end to this once powerful entity. Upton Sinclair's insight and experience that he put into The Jungle was extremely significant and helped to bring about a great deal of change.

"Worst of any, however were the fertilizer-men, and those who served in the cooking rooms. These people could not be shown to the visitor, for the odor of the fertilizer-man would scare any ordinary visitor at a hundred yards; and for the other men, who worked in tank rooms full of steam, and in some of which there were open vats near the level of the floor, their peculiar trouble was that

Some common words found in the essay are:
Beef Trust, Phil Connor, Federation Labor, Leaf Lard, Jurgis Rudkus, Upton Sinclair's, Chicago Jurgis, Jack Duane, Socialist Party, Movement United, meat packing, meat packing plant, phil connor, beef trust, packing plant, plant jurgis, novel jungle, jurgis begins, concern workers, socialist party, fertilizer plant, american federation labor,

Approximate Word count = 1396
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: History