Upton Sinclair's The Jungle: Analysis

Antonio Heredia
Mr.Schramn
American Literature
4 February 2015 “There is no ‘I’ in team.” Many of us have heard this saying before whether it is in the sports world, in school, at work, or maybe even at home. The lesson taught is to show teamwork and care for the benefit of one’s teammates. Ideally this lesson will work out, though in Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle the saying is proved to false. Taking place in a capitalist society, the novel depicts the polar treatment of individuals during this time. The wealthy few would benefit from the hard and dangerous work of the poor many; while the wealthy would also suppress the working conditions and the multitude of the poor themselves. Jurgis represents the working class of America at the time,
While working at the meat packing industry Jurgis sprained his ankle and was put on bed rest for three months. Having Jurgis on bed rest the family was stripped from one of their primary incomes. This being the case, everyone had to seek employment even the younger members of the family and a pregnant Ona. The employment which they were able to find paid them minimal amounts and caused the family to barely scrap by until Jurgis was cleared to go back to work. “… wages from 15 cents an hour for new unskilled hands to 50 cents an hour for the highly skilled” (Weiner 80) Even as Jurgis was able to go back to work, his employer had already dropped him as Jurgis was made to settle for a job which paid less. At this point Jurgis’s brother in law was sick of the situation and decided to leave the family and break a traditional family value, the first Rudkus to fall to Capitalism. All this time Ona has been working during her pregnancy. The simple fact that she is working is bad enough, but additionally her employer one day raped her after her shift was done. This causes Jurgis to physically assault the employer and Jurgis ends up going to jail. All this because the employer had the “right” in the conflict and sent Jurgis to jail. While serving Jurgis was serving his term in Jail, Ona had difficulties in delivering her baby and ended up dying, yet
Jurgis is in a constant battle against Capitalism, which untimely concludes in Jurgis “winning” only by him giving up all his beliefs and traditions. At the start of the novel Jurgis has a mindset that hard work will get him out of complications and get him to prosper in the new land, in other words, Jurgis has faith in the American Dream. When Ona was worried as to how they were going to pay off the debt brought upon them by their wedding a young Jurgis said, “I will work harder” (Sinclair 18) Though as the course of the story went on Jurgis abandoned this thought, even ending up being a beggar on the streets and not working at all. And the drive to work hard to alleviate his family of any debt and issues with money was also completely abandoned. As soon as Jurgis would receive a pay check he would get himself into a bar to fuel his growing alcohol problem, having only a fraction of his pay actually go towards his family. As previously mentioned Jurgis goes through a gradual change as a result of multiple and constant attacks by Capitalism, even causing Jurgis to change his whole belief system. “The innocence of Jurgis’ delight in his work is soon undercut by all kinds of rude afflictions and disillusionments” (Folsom 28) As the story is set up to give the reader a sense that Lithuanian customs are extremely family oriented and