The Jungle

The Jungle is a 1906 novel written by muckraking journalist Upton Sinclair.^[1] Sinclair wrote the novel to portray the life of the immigrant in the United States, but readers were more concerned with the large portion pertaining to the corruption of the American meatpacking industry during the early-20th century, and the book is now often interpreted and taught as only an exposure of the industry of meatpacking. This was not Sinclair's intention for the book though and not what he would have liked it to be famous for. The novel depicts in harsh tones poverty, absence of social programs, unpleasant living and working conditions, and hopelessness prevalent among the working class, which is contrasted with the deeply-rooted corruption on the part of those in power. Sinclair's observations of the state of turn-of-the-century labor were placed front and center for the American public to see, suggesting that something needed to be changed to get rid of American wage slavery.^[2] The novel was first published in serial form in 1905 in the socialist newspaper Appeal to Reason. It was based on undercover work done in 1904: Sinclair spent seven weeks gathering information while working incognito in the meatpacking plants of the Chicago stockyards at the behest of the magazine's publishers.^[3] He then started looking for a publisher who would be willing to print it in book form. After five rejections by publishers who found it too shocking for publication, he funded the first printing himself.^[3] It was published by Doubleday, Page & Company on February 28, 1906 and has been in print ever since.

[edit] Plot summary

Panorama of the beef industry in 1900 by a Chicago-based photographer

The novel opens with a dramatic description of a Lithuanian wedding feast hosted by the Liermans, which introduces the reader to all of the major characters and some of the secondary characters: Jurgis Rudkus (originally "Rudkos"^[4]), his bride Ona, their extended family and their friends. Nearly every person who has passed by the building has been invited to attend the feast, as was the custom from the old country. Musicians play, the guests dance, food and drink flow freely, but an undercurrent of terror foreshadows what is to come, their generous hospitality has cost them much, but the traditional donations expected of the guests are few in number and small in size. Lured away from Lithuania by promises of work, Rudkus and his bride's family have arrived in the Back of the Yards neighborhood of Chicago, Illinois at the end of the 19th century, only to find their dreams of a decent life unlikely to be realized. Jurgis has brought his father Antanas, his fiancée Ona, her stepmother Teta Elzbieta (literally "Aunt Elizabeth") and Teta Elzbieta's six children. Teta Elzbieta's brother Jonas and Ona's cousin Marija Berczynskas have accompanied them.
From the beginning, they have to make compromises and concessions to survive. They quickly make a series of bad decisions that causes them to go deep into debt and fall prey to con men. The most devastating decision comes when, in hopes of owning their own home, the family falls victim to a predatory lending scheme that exhausts all their remaining savings on the down-payment for a sub-standard slum house that (by design) they cannot possibly afford. The family is evicted and their money taken, leaving them truly devastated.
The family had formerly envisioned that Jurgis alone would be able to support them in the United States, but one by one, all of them — the women, the young children, and Jurgis's sick father — have to find jobs in order to contribute to the meager family income. As the novel progresses, the jobs and means the family uses to stay alive slowly and inevitably lead to their physical and moral decay.
They faced a cruel world of work in the Chicago Stockyards, where everyone has his or her price, where everyone in a position of power, including government inspectors, the police and judges, must be paid off, and where blacklisting is common. A series of unfortunate events — accidents at work, a number of deaths in the family that under normal circumstances could have been preventable — leads the family further toward catastrophe. Jurgis Rudkus, the book's main character, is young, strong, and honest, but also naïve and illiterate; this Lithuanian farmboy is no match for the powerful forces of American industry and he gradually loses all hope of succeeding in the New World. After Ona dies in childbirth — for lack of money to pay for a doctor — and their young son drowns in the muddy street, he flees the city in utter despair. At first the mere presence of fresh air is balm to his soul, but his brief sojourn as a hobo in rural United States shows him that there is really no escape — even farmers turn their workers away when the harvest is finished.

Men walking on wooden rails between cattle pens in the Chicago stockyard (1909)

Jurgis returns to Chicago and holds down a succession of jobs outside the meat packing industry — digging tunnels, as a political hack, and as a con-man — but injuries on the job, his past and his innate sense of personal integrity continue to haunt him, and he drifts without direction. One night, while looking for a warm and dry refuge, he wanders into a lecture being given by a charismatic Socialist orator, and finds a sense of community and purpose. Socialism and strong labor unions are the answer to the evils that he, his family and their fellow sufferers have had to endure. A fellow Socialist employs him, and he resumes his support of his wife's family, although some of them are damaged beyond repair.
The book ends with another Socialist rally, which comes on the heels of several recent political victories. The speaker encourages his comrades to keep fighting for victories, chanting "Chicago will be ours!"