It's a Jungle

It’s a Jungle Out There Upton Sinclair’s novel, The Jungle, gives a heart breaking portrayal of the hardships faced by the countless poverty stricken foreign laborers in the slaughter houses of Chicago. In the early 1900's, strikes, riots, labor unions, and new political parties arose across the country. The government, with its laissez-faire attitude, allowed business to consolidate into trusts, and with lack of competition, into powerful monopolies. These multi-million dollar monopolies were able to exploit every opportunity to make greater fortunes regardless of human consequences. Sinclair illustrates the harsh conditions in Packingtown through a Lithuanian immigrant family and their struggles to survive. Jurgis Rudkus and his extended family come to the United States to find work and to make a better life for themselves. When everyone finds employment right away, the family begins their lives in the unfamiliar United States with optimism, enthusiasm, and naivety. Their inexperienced attitude is evident when they purchase a small rickety house. Slowly, they awaken to the harsh realities of their surroundings. There's the mortgage to pay, interest on the mortgage, food, clothing, shoes, and coal that needs to be bought, but there isn’t enough money to pay for it all. Therefore, this leads the rest of the family to trudge out into the cold and merciless streets of Chicago to beg for work and money. However, Jurgis and his family still lacked the sufficient income necessary to make ends meet. Through the duration of the novel, tragedy after tragedy strikes this family, leading the family into ruin. After a long series of unfortunate events, the reader finds Jurgis fresh out of prison, his wife dead, and his family scattered. Jurgis eventually overcomes his misfortunes and finds salvation in a newly formed political party, called Socialism. The focus of Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle is the politics of immigration in the meatpacking industry. Sinclair’s novel