Values And Culture In Upton Sinclair's The Jungle

T his essay discusses some question I was given to answer. What the que stions you ask let's see. What is the opening scene of the novel? Where and when is it? What does this scene say about the values and culture of the novel’s characters? Let's see what the answer and examine it. First, the beginning scene of The Jungle by Upton Sinclair takes place throughout the afternoon at the rear space of one of the saloons in an exceedingly a part of Chicago notable a s the “back of the yards.” The event is the wedding of Ona and Jurgis. There are a lot of people attending, but one tradition is that everyone donates money for the bride and groom to pay for the wedding, but people try leave so they would be able to try to give some money . Also, the bartender tries to chea t them out of their money say the guest drank a lot of wine.

The setting in is " Packing town ," Chicago's Meatpacking District in the early 1900s. The meatpacking factories themselves that are unhealthful. Everything in Packing town has been tainted by the poverty and misery that the slaughterhouse industry has brought to the area. The river is filled with chemical runoffs from the factories. The streets have no drainage and are filled with potholes deep enough to drown a child in. The tenements are overcrowded with workers and the houses are shabby and badly built. The whole area is far from Chicago's downtown, so Packing town's dreary injustices are out of sight, out of mind for most of the city's residents. The polluted, overcrowded, impoverished backdrop of The Jungle gives the whole novel an inescapable, unhappy feeling that enhances the tragedy of what happens to Jurgis and his family. ( Shmoop Editorial