The Jungle is a book about a Lithuanian immigrant named Jurgis, who moves to the United States to seek a better equipped life for him and his family. He and his family moved the Chicago, to a place known as "Packingtown", the center of Chicago's meat packing industry. It was very difficult to find a job, the hours are long and exhausting, the pay is depressing. They found and bought a house, soon to find out that it was a scheme, and money will be lost. Through the rest of the book, they family struggles to keep their lives together. Jurgis and the family work day in and day out, to keep themselves as healthy and strong as possible. Jurgis and the family face many struggles through their time in Packingtown. Their lives were filled with endless obstacles, discrimination, unfairness, greed, poverty, injustice, bravery, socialism and stubborn capitalists. Through the book, they fought desperately to stay on the right track, but when things got fierce they struggle tremendously. Injustice was experienced many times throughout this book by the Lithuanian family. Jobs were almost impossible to find unless you look

Poverty was a struggle for many in Packingtown. Poverty in this city was widely understood, since most of the people there faced the sacrifices and hardships of supporting themselves and their families while keeping vigorous. Jobs were not easy to find, and the pay was never satisfying. While Jurgis was working hard at his job he eventually learns that the plants bring in extra men, which brings wages down and creates a unnecessary amount of labor. Jurgis realized later that the extra men were being trained as strikebreakers. Jurgis notices that capitalism, is an crisis of society, always keeping the common worker in poverty while enriching the wealthy. In time, the family soon had to deal with the repercussions of the horrible reality that they were living in. Ona soon admitted to the family that she had been seduced by her boss, then blackmailed into becoming her boss's mistress. He had threatened to take her job from her, as well as the jobs from her family members, confronting the family with starvation if she did not obey. "Here is a population, low-class and mostly foreign, hanging always on the verge of starvation and dependent for its opportunities of life upon the whim of men every bit as brutal and unscrupulous as the old-time slave drivers; under such circumstances, immorality is exactly as inevitable, and as prevalent, as it is under the system of chattel slavery." (p.126) Soon after, Marija's factory closed down suddenly and she is out of a job. In the winter, the factory was shut down without notice and without assistance to the workers, leaving them to starve. The factories slowed down during certain times of the year, or closed down altogether, leaving families to starve. Workers were still expected to show up for a full day, but are only paid for the hours when work is available. This is illegal, but the workers are left with no other choice.

Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1428
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)