Phil Connor is a foreman in Packingtown, "politically connected" (through Scully), and a man who causes much trouble for Jurgis. Jack Duane is an experienced and educated criminal who is also "politically connected". A man called Ostrinski is a half-blind tailor who teaches Jurgis about Socialism. There are also the members of Ona's family, each of who play minor roles in the story.

The story opens with the feast at Jurgis and Ona's wedding in America, but soon flashes back to the time before they left Lithuania. Jurgis met Ona at a horse fair, and fell in love with her. Unfortunately, they were too poor to have a wedding, since Ona's father just died. In the hopes of finding freedom and fortune, they left for America, bringing many members of Ona's family with them.

After arriving in America, they are taken to Packingtown to find

Another thing that shocked me while reading the novel was the cruelty to animals. The animals were packed in freight cars, and shipped across the country. Many of them died on the trip. Once reaching Packingtown, each hog had a chain fastened around its leg, was hoisted into the air, and carried into a room where its throat was slit. When the cattle reached Packingtown, they were stunned by electric shock, and dropped onto a conveyor belt, where a man with a sledgehammer pierced their skulls. These animals existed in very poor conditions, especially the "steerly" cattle that developed boils.

After reading The Jungle, a person would never expect the United States to survive as a Capitalist country. The only option shown to the reader is Socialism. The author never mentions the good that Capitalism has done, nor does he mention any possible flaws in Socialism. Socialism is presented as perfection, while all other philosophies are flawed. This makes the novel surprisingly one-side and anti-American.

Despite the cruel conditions, the anti-American sentiment, and the one-sided views, the novel was well written. Upton Sinclair did an excellent job of describing the massive organization and efficiency of Packingtown. It is clear that he despised Packingtown, for being a center of Capitalism and for its working conditions, but he was impressed with it. Packingtown slaughtered, processed, packed, and shipped hundreds of thousands of cattle and hogs every day. It ran twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, and never stopped. Even during holidays and during union strikes, Packingtown still ran at full speed.

work. Packingtown is a section of Chicago where the meat packing industry is centralized. They take a tour of the plant, and see the unbelievable efficiency and speed at which hogs and cattle are butchered, cooked, packed, and shipped. In Packingtown, no part of the animal is wasted. The tour guide specifically says, "They use everything about the hog except the squeal," (The Jungle, page 38).

Now that I have read The Jungle, I am amazed that our country survived to be the world superpower it is today. I am even more amazed that we did not all die from eating food made in such poor conditions. The novel did not persuade me to become a Socialist, but I did consider a vegetarian lifestyle. Nevertheless, I still enjoyed reading it.

The book discusses all the things that were being shipped out to the civilized world as "meat". Sausages were not really made of sausage meat. They were mostly composed of "potato flour"; an odorless and tasteless potato extract with almost no food value. There were the cattle that had been fed "whiskey malt"; the refuse of breweries. These animals would become "steerly", or covered with boils. "It was a nasty job killing these, for when you plunged you knife into them they would burst and splash foul-smelling stuff in your face," (The Jungle, page 99). According to law, diseased meat could not be sold out of the state. However, there were no laws restricting it's sale inside the state. As a result, the tuberculosis-infected hog meat nev

Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 2129
Approximate Pages = 9 (250 words per page double spaced)