How Are Meatpacking Houses Able To So Thoroughly Exploit Those Employed To Process The Meat
The Jungle (reading questions)
1. What is the significance of the title? What is the relationship between animals in the jungle? In this case, what has dehumanized the people throughout the novel into “beasts” engaged in a savage competitive struggle where the strong devour the vulnerable?
2. How are the meatpacking houses able to so thoroughly exploit those employed to process the meat? Why doesn't Jurgis and others simply quit and go to work for another company?
3. In what ways are the employees of the packing houses like the animals that are being slaughtered and processed? Do they have any rights or protections that can be called upon? What happens to an injured animal? An injured worker?
4. How does the novel address the role
of personal responsibility for success and failure? Does it reaffirm or reject the ethos of “rugged individualism?” What does Jurgis mean when he says “I will work harder” as a response to all difficulties?
5. Does the novel suggest that the social results displayed here (hardship, poverty, corruption, etc.) are the results of bad persons or something larger? If individuals are not responsible for these results then what, according to Sinclair is responsible?
6. For those who have “succeeded” (have comparatively stable jobs and income), by what means have they done so? Are they better people, happier people, as a result of their “success?”
7. What is the significance of home ownership? Why are Jurgis and his family members so devoted to purchasing the house? Were they cheated out of their home or was it simply a matter of the law?
8. Why are the politics of Packingtown and Chicago so corrupt? How do the political behaviors reflect the values and power relationships of the economic situation?
9. How were women subjected to additional forms of exploitation? Are they simply immoral or “fallen” women? Do they have freedom of choice? The right of refusal?
10. What does the novel (author Upton Sinclair) propose as the solution to the exploitation of labor, adulteration of products, greed and graft, and the various corruptions seen here? Does he advocate reform, or are the exploitation and corruption so integral to capitalism that the system is beyond reform?
1. What is the significance of the title? What is the relationship between animals in the jungle? In this case, what has dehumanized the people throughout the novel into “beasts” engaged in a savage competitive struggle where the strong devour the vulnerable?
2. How are the meatpacking houses able to so thoroughly exploit those employed to process the meat? Why doesn't Jurgis and others simply quit and go to work for another company?
3. In what ways are the employees of the packing houses like the animals that are being slaughtered and processed? Do they have any rights or protections that can be called upon? What happens to an injured animal? An injured worker?
4. How does the novel address the role
of personal responsibility for success and failure? Does it reaffirm or reject the ethos of “rugged individualism?” What does Jurgis mean when he says “I will work harder” as a response to all difficulties?
5. Does the novel suggest that the social results displayed here (hardship, poverty, corruption, etc.) are the results of bad persons or something larger? If individuals are not responsible for these results then what, according to Sinclair is responsible?
6. For those who have “succeeded” (have comparatively stable jobs and income), by what means have they done so? Are they better people, happier people, as a result of their “success?”
7. What is the significance of home ownership? Why are Jurgis and his family members so devoted to purchasing the house? Were they cheated out of their home or was it simply a matter of the law?
8. Why are the politics of Packingtown and Chicago so corrupt? How do the political behaviors reflect the values and power relationships of the economic situation?
9. How were women subjected to additional forms of exploitation? Are they simply immoral or “fallen” women? Do they have freedom of choice? The right of refusal?
10. What does the novel (author Upton Sinclair) propose as the solution to the exploitation of labor, adulteration of products, greed and graft, and the various corruptions seen here? Does he advocate reform, or are the exploitation and corruption so integral to capitalism that the system is beyond reform?