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The Jungle

Name: The Jungle
Author: Upton Sinclair

Upton Sinclair

1906 · Early 20th Century · Novel · English

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Abstract

Written: 1904-1905
Setting: Early 1900s; Packingtown, Chicago
Author: Upton Sinclair
Country: United States
Language: English
Genre: Social protest novel
Form: Novel in 31 chapters
Recommended: Grades 10–12 (Graphic scenes of poverty, injury, death and exploitation; high school.)

Opening. A Lithuanian wedding party in a Chicago saloon introduces a family of newcomers who have crossed the ocean hoping to prosper in the stockyard district.

Work. The young husband is strong and confident; he believes effort can beat any trouble. The plants instead maim and sicken the family, and swindlers sell them a home on terms they cannot meet.

Exposure. Sinclair shows spoiled carcasses, rats and chemicals in the sausage, child labour, and bosses who prey on the women workers.

Catastrophe. Imprisonment, eviction, death in childbirth and the drowning of a small boy strip the hero of everything. He tramps the countryside and slides into crime and ward politics.

Turn. A rousing speech at a rally converts him to socialism, and the last chapters argue for common ownership of industry.

Impact. Readers were most horrified by the meat, and within months Congress passed federal inspection and pure-food laws. The book is a landmark of muckraking fiction for older students. Teachers should prepare students for the bleakness of the middle chapters. The book pairs naturally with a study of Progressive Era reform, immigration, and the history of food safety, and it raises lasting questions about what workers, consumers and governments owe one another.

Main characters

Jurgis Rudkus: A strong Lithuanian immigrant worker.
Ona Lukoszaite: A young, gentle woman who suffers greatly.
Marija Berczynskas: A strong, cheerful woman later driven to prostitution.
Teta Elzbieta: The family's patient caretaker.
Phil Connor: Ona's abusive foreman.
Ostrinski: A Polish socialist who teaches Jurgis.

Summary

The Jungle, published in 1906, is Upton Sinclair's novel about immigrant workers in the meatpacking district of Chicago, and it is one of the most influential American novels ever written. It opens at the wedding feast of Jurgis Rudkus and Ona Lukoszaite, Lithuanian immigrants who have come to America with Ona's family, hoping for prosperity. Jurgis, young and strong, finds work in the packing plants of Packingtown and believes that he can overcome any difficulty; his answer to every setback is that he will work harder. The family is cheated in the purchase of a house sold on deceptive terms, and the dangerous, filthy work in the plants injures and sickens them. The guides tell visitors that the packers use everything about the hog except the squeal, and Sinclair describes diseased meat, rats and chemicals going into the products. Jurgis is injured and loses his job; the children are sent to work; Ona is forced into sexual submission by her boss, Phil Connor. When Jurgis learns of it, he attacks Connor and is jailed, and the family loses the house. Ona dies in childbirth, and later Jurgis's little son Antanas drowns in the muddy street. Jurgis leaves the city, becomes a tramp, returns to Chicago, works in a steel mill and a harvester works, becomes involved in crime and in corrupt machine politics, and falls further. At last he wanders into a socialist meeting and is converted by an orator's speech; the final chapters present socialist arguments for a new economic order. Sinclair intended to win readers to socialism, but the public was most shocked by the conditions of the meat. He famously said that he aimed at the public's heart and by accident hit it in the stomach. The novel helped bring about the Meat Inspection Act and the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906. Its scenes of poverty, sexual exploitation and death make it suitable for upper high school.

Virtues in this work

Fortitude: Jurgis and his family endure great suffering.
Justice: The novel cries out for justice for workers.

Plot or Argument

The wedding
Jurgis and Ona celebrate their wedding in Packingtown.
Packingtown
The family is cheated, overworked and made ill; Ona is abused by her boss.
Ruin
Jurgis goes to jail, the family loses its home, Ona and Antanas die.
Wandering and conversion
Jurgis becomes a tramp and a criminal, then finds hope in socialism.

Characters

Jurgis Rudkus, protagonist
A strong Lithuanian immigrant worker.
Ona Lukoszaite, Jurgis's wife
A young, gentle woman who suffers greatly.
Marija Berczynskas, Ona's cousin
A strong, cheerful woman later driven to prostitution.
Teta Elzbieta, Ona's stepmother
The family's patient caretaker.
Phil Connor, boss
Ona's abusive foreman.
Ostrinski, socialist
A Polish socialist who teaches Jurgis.

Lessons

Reform through fiction
Sinclair's novel changed federal law. Students can study how literature can affect public policy.
- Which laws followed The Jungle?
- Why did readers react to the meat more than the workers?
- Can a novel be both art and argument?
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The immigrant dream
Jurgis's hopes meet harsh reality. The book asks what a just society owes newcomers.
- What did the family expect in America?
- How are they cheated?
- What protections might have helped them?
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- What are other sources of hope?
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Context

Chicago's Union Stock Yards and packing houses were the largest in the world, employing many immigrants under harsh conditions.

Composition

Sinclair spent seven weeks in Packingtown in 1904; the novel was serialized in the socialist paper Appeal to Reason in 1905 and published by Doubleday in 1906.

Reception

It became a best seller; President Theodore Roosevelt investigated, and Congress passed the Meat Inspection Act and Pure Food and Drug Act in 1906.

Class / Society Money Wealth Justice Law Home Exile Illness / Body

Comparisons

Hard Times
Dickens also attacks the treatment of industrial workers.
Babbitt
A later satire of American business from the owner's side.

Quotes

“They use everything about the hog except the squeal.”

— Upton Sinclair, The Jungle, Chapter III (Project Gutenberg #140).Quote card

A Treatise on Political Economy, Book I, Chapter XV: Of the demand or market for products
the encouragement of mere consumption is no benefit to commerce; for the difficulty lies in supplying the means, not in stimulating the desire of consumption One of the practical corollaries Say draws from the law of markets: prosperity comes from enabling production, not from urging people to spend.
The Railway Children, Chapter III, The old gentleman
Dr Forrest diagnoses Mother's influenza and lists what she needs; the children ask the old gentleman for it.
The Nose, Lesson: Satire through the absurd
Satire through the absurd. Gogol never explains how the nose escaped; instead every character reacts to the impossible with ordinary bureaucratic fussiness. The joke exposes the habits of a society more concerned with procedure and reputation than with truth.
Second Inaugural Address, Source
Franklin D Roosevelt's Second Inaugural Address WHEN four years ago we met to inaugurate a President the Republic single-minded in anxiety stood in spirit here We dedicated ourselves to the fulfillment of a vision--to speed the time when there would be for all the people that security and peace essential to the pursuit of happiness We of the Republic pledged ourselves to drive from the temple of our ancient faith those who had profaned it to end by action tireless and unafraid the stagnation and despair of that...
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“I will work harder.”

— Upton Sinclair, The Jungle, Chapter I (Project Gutenberg #140).Quote card

The Wise Woman (A Double Story), Chapter X
There is but one true way, however, of getting out of any position we may be in, and that is, to do the work of it so well that we grow fit for a better Agnes, miserable in the palace scullery, schemes for a way out instead of doing her work well.
The Burke-Paine Debate on the French Revolution, Lesson: Reading a revolution while it is happening
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Middlemarch, Book II, Chapter XV
Lydgate's history: his first reading of anatomy as a boy, his studies in London, Edinburgh and Paris, and his ambition to continue Bichat's work on tissues.
A Treatise on Political Economy, Book I, Chapter XI: Of the formation and multiplication of capital
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Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego, Ch. I
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For Students

A reading companion for classical Christian high school students. See the student guide.

Reading Guide

Watch for

The wedding feast in Chapter I.
How the family buys its house.
Conditions in the plants.
What happens to Ona.
Jurgis at the socialist meeting.

Key terms and names

Packingtown: The meatpacking district near the Chicago stockyards.
Muckraker: A journalist or writer who exposes corruption.
Socialism: A theory that the community should own the means of production.
Wage slavery: A socialist term for work so poorly paid that the worker has no real freedom.

Seminar Questions

Comprehension Why do the Rudkus family come to America?
Comprehension How are they cheated over the house?
Comprehension What happens to Ona and Antanas?
Interpretation Why is the novel called The Jungle?
Interpretation Why does Jurgis's slogan fail him?
Big Question What does a society owe to its workers?

Faith Connections

James 5:4 (Scripture)
The hire of the labourers which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth.
Leviticus 19:13 (Scripture)
Thou shalt not defraud thy neighbour.

Logic and Rhetoric

Central argument: An economic system that treats workers as raw material destroys families; Sinclair argues that only a new order can end such suffering.

Rhetorical device: accumulation of detail. Sinclair piles up concrete details of the plants to make readers feel the conditions.

Debate: Resolved: that The Jungle succeeded as reform even though it failed as socialist argument.

Memory Work

They use everything about the hog except the squeal.
Chapter III. A famous satirical line about industrial efficiency.

Writing Prompts

Essay: Is Jurgis's fate caused by personal failure or by the system? Argue with evidence.

Comparison with Hard Times: Compare Sinclair's Packingtown with Dickens's Coketown in Hard Times.

Creative Prompts

Essay
Explain how The Jungle led to food safety laws.
Dialogue
Write a conversation between Jurgis and a new immigrant arriving in Packingtown.
Classroom
Research the 1906 Pure Food and Drug Act and present its main provisions.