Examples Of Corruption In The Jungle

The Jungle: An American Tale of Immigration and Corruption

In the book, The Jungle, the readers comprehend a traditional American story of the tragic lives of immigrants coming to this country in search of new life, and instead finding greed and corruption. People who came into America in the time period of the late 1800’s to early 1900’s experienced a whole new world not quite what they were expecting. Living conditions and homes were not treated as well as the lower class American homes were. Wages were at an all time low with a decreased purchasing power of immigrant’s money. Everywhere they turned, someone was there waiting to cheat them. The government, political machines, and even everyday merchants on the streets treated immigrants

Poverty sometimes could cause people to die that would have survived if they had the money to see a doctor, like in the case of Ona and her baby. She was in distress during labor and the only person that could have helped her was a midwife or doctor. The Rudkus’ family was so poor that they did not have any money to spare, so they did not get Ona the medical attention she needed. Her untimely death and her baby’s were directly caused by the family’s poverty and inability to afford the proper care to treat them. Poverty also caused Marija to choose to go into prostitution to make her family money. After she into prostitution and was addicted to drugs, she was stuck. Even though the job she kept was considered to be the worst thing she could do, Marija made enough money that she believed that prostitution was the one thing that could have saved the family. Later in the book, Jurgis joins the life of crime with Jack Duane to try and make some money for himself. He realizes that the criminal life was making him more money than when he worked in the fertilizer plant or the steel mill. The Rudkus-Lukoszaite family living in poverty for most of their existence in the United States was a key contributor to most of the negative situations they

For example, Ona was taken advantage of by her boss Phil Connor. She felt she could not stop seeing him because he threatened the jobs of her family if she did not. Bosses like Connor used their powerful positions over young women all the time take advantage of them. The Political Machine’s rule over large cities are another example of abuses of power. Mike Scully, the controller of the Democratic Party in Chicago was in charge of making all political decisions, even though he was not in office. The police department, store owners, and business leaders were all under the influence of Mike Scully’s decisions and had no choice but to do what they asked. This caused a widespread corruption in almost all systems, including the courts as well. People in authority also scammed others out of their money in less major situations. Bush Harper, one of the main men in Mike Scully’s political machine, bailed Jurgis out of prison. When doing so, he told Jurgis to transfer all of his savings to him by stating that it would be ‘safer’ for him. This forced Jurgis back into poverty after living in semi-luxurious conditions for a few months. People in authority have been abusing the trusting nature of immigrants since before the time of the Rudkus