Upton Sinclair: the Jungle

Historic Novel Essay: The Jungle Capitalism is a very important piece in Upton Sinclair’s book The Jungle. It especially takes a hold of the lives of Jurgis and his family. Jurgis and his family move from Lithuania to the United States in search of the American dream. They believed that life in America would be a happy life where they could have many opportunities and get paid very well. That, however, was not necessarily the case. What Jurgis and his family were expecting America to be like was not how it ended up. Jurgis believed in the American Dream which was that if you work hard and have good morals, you will achieve happiness and success. What really happened to the Rudkus’ is that they were taken advantage of and were not given any chances to succeed. Jurgis is first surrounded with the brutal working and living conditions in Packingtown. Jurgis and his family came to America for acceptance and opportunity but what they really got was a land of prejudice and unfairness. The hard work and good morals do not lead to success, but corrupted morals, greed, and lying is the option for succeeding.

Everything seems to be going wrong for Jurgis and his family throughout the book. They are constantly taken advantage of by people because of greed. It seems as if laws are never being enforced and everybody tries to walk over the family as if they are nothing. The whole community is trying to get ahead of one another by their acts of greediness. An example of the corrupted acts of power is how Ona’s boss Mr. Connor sexually harasses Ona at the factory. Mr. Connor is considered a powerful man and has ties to business, politics, and crime. Mr. Connor knows that he can get away with what he’s doing because of who he is. Even though what he is doing is wrong, nothing will happen to him because if somebody tried to get him in trouble for what he did to Ona, then he would just destroy their life because of his power. An important part of the