The Role Of Immigrants In Upton Sinclair's The Jungle

Sinclair uses a Lithuanian family of immigrants to represent the hardships of the working class, and because of this, is able to explore the difficulties of the immigrant experience in America. Jurgis and his family come to America with hopes of a new life, with good money and success. Until around the middle of the book, they maintain an incredibly strong belief in the idea of the American Dream. They work hard and have faith that their struggles will soon be rewarded with wealth, that will, by default, result in happiness. Sinclair shows how this concept is not always true through a worst-case-scenario, that the reader learns is all too true for many other families immigrating to America at the same time. Practically every single aspect of the family’s experience in Packingtown, Chicago’s meatpacking district which is riddled with crime and poverty, runs completely the opposite of what most believe to be the American Dream.
The Jungle revolves around poor immigrants who are constantly subject to trauma, disease, starvation, and death. As consequence, they feel trapped in the horrible, endless cycle of poverty and unemployment that they must live through every day. Sinclair illustrates this feeling perfectly when he writes, “There's one kind of prison where the man is behind bars, and everything that he desires outside; there's another kind where the things are behind the bars and the man is outside” (Sinclair 345). Jurgis has experienced both types of prisons that Sinclair is referring