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Examples of immigrants in the jungle
The jungle essay about immigrants
Examples of immigrants in the jungle
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The Jungle
"The Jungle" portrays the lower ranks of the industrial world as the scene of a naked struggle for survival. Where workers not only are forced to compete with each other but, if they falter, are hard pressed to keep starvation from their door and a roof over their heads. With unions weak and cheap labor plentiful, a social Darwinist state of "the survival of the fittest" exists. The real story revolves around the integration and eventual disintegration of Jurgis Rudkis and his family, Lithuanian immigrants who move to the Chicago stockyards in hopes of a better life. Unfortunately, their hopes quickly disintegrate; like thousands of other unskilled immigrants at the turn of the century, financial necessity forces them into virtual slave labor in order to survive. For Jurgis and his family, the slave master is the ruthless and greedy meat packing industry, whose leaders value their workers no more than the animals they slaughter.
"The Jungle" shows the relationship between the animals that were being slaughtered and the workers who were slaughtering them, from very early in the novel. It compares the workers to the animals who are penned up and killed every day in the stockyards, which are moved along on conveyer belts by machinery that cares nothing for their individual desires. In the monotonous killing of each of the hogs, "They had done nothing to deserve it; and it was adding insult to injury, as the thing was done here, swinging them up in this cold blooded, impersonal way, without a pretense of apology without the homage of a tear."(Pg. 35) The key comparison is the condition of the workingmen; as cold, efficient machinery assimilates them, a blind fate swallows them up. A few of the men are even swallowed up literally when they would fall into huge vats and emerges as "Durham’s Pure Leaf Lard". (Pg. 99) "The Jungle" also shows precisely how wounded, diseased, and pregnant animals are turned into food under just the same unhealthy conditions that soon leave healthy men wounded and diseased; "There was no heat upon the killing beds; the men might as well have worked out of doors all winter…. On the killing beds you were apt to be covered with blood, and it would freeze solid; if you leaned against a pillar, you would freeze to that, and if you put your hand upon the blade of your knife, you would run a chance of leaving your skin on i...
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...e for him. There had to be something to show him the meaning of his sacrifices. It is then that he happens upon a Socialist political meeting. At this point, Jurgis truly is a beaten man. However, when he listens to the political speaker, he finds that he expresses the essence of all his pain and frustration. He takes Socialism to his heart, believing that it is the only political philosophy that can save his kind.
"They were so innocent, they came so very trustingly; and they were so very human in their protests-and so perfectly within their rights!"(Pg. 35) This is exactly how each of the immigrant families came over to America just like the hogs, cattle, sheep and many other animals that came into to the stockyards of Chicago only to find that a shadow of a deadly fate was awaiting their arrival. Each family arrived with hopes and dreams of succeeding in this free country were they could work for honest wages and live peacefully, but with each dream and hope came death and despair. It was a huge rat race, in which it was every man for himself, but not even the strongest could survive in this urban jungle for only the wealthy and corrupt were the ones who made it to the top.
Because the wages at this time were next to nothing, immigrants were forced to spend hours upon hours to make enough money to give what little s...
Barr. Cesar Chavez put a quote about Martin Luther King Jr. “Letter from Birmingham Jail” which give the message to the reader that Cesar Chavez had no intentions of having a rebellion but to just exposed of the injustice that it was given to the immigrant workers because by exposing those inequalities to the union is when it can be cured since it was done before. It also tries to explain to the reader that they will not give up on getting equal right for the people because Cesar Chavez stated that “They have been under the gun, they have been kicked and beaten and herded by dogs” this shows to the audience that the people of Cesar Chavez will not give up even if there are gun pointed into their heads. It also stated into the “Letter of Delano” that “Time accomplishes for the poor what money does for the rich” what this is trying to say and what it is trying to reach for the audience is that even if the immigrants are poor and they can’t afford not to work they are willing to do it because with that time they were getting prepared, prepared for what it was coming in the nest years to come they had a
The Jungle dealt with the cruel and shocking truths behind the meat packing and processing business. Day was captivated by the stories of its characters. She was also largely responsible for taking care of her brother, John, as the family expected it of her. In her earlier years, Day would walk with John through the Park to relax and appreciate nature, but as she began to read Sinclair's work, she shifted the strolling routes to the poor district on the West Side of Chicago. While she walked through the district, she would often imagine Sinclair's work in motion, as she let fiction become reality.
His ego was heighten when he found a job during his first day in Packingtown. (Sinclair, “The Jungle”, 23)*. Excited as he was, Jurgis had no knowledge of the work he was going to get involved with. The meat industry at Durham’s are not a pleasant sight, and Jurgis was shocked with the production of the meat industry. His time working there allows him to view the process of meat packaging and distribution; though he can’t understand the error towards the industry’s method of employment and production. The superintendents and higher officials have no interest in the well-being of there employees, and view them as replaceable objects. If an employee was not long fit work; or refused to comply with their regulations: such as “speed up” demands or longer hours, they would immediately get replaced with another person willing to obey. In additions, accidents (though not as frequent) arose having workers injured, or in dreadful occasions, killed. Therefore, these accidents became a valid reason to replace workers without owning up to any ethical consequences. Jurgis was also recruited to work on confidential assignments, such as process and distribution of tainted meat (Sinclair, “The Jungle”, #)*. This allowed Jurgis to witness the corrupt version of an industry. Tainted meat was washed and recruits removed as much spoiled meat as possible. After this task, the recruits
He shows us a happy family that is destroyed by the turmoil of capitalism in early 20th century Chicago, although it is still something that runs rampant in our society today. In the book, Jurgis gets a job where he works at a packing house and the conditions are horrible. The people who own the packing house are deceitful and unfair, and when Jurgis gets hurt at work his employer shows no sympathy. He struggles to find another job where he can get paid well, and when he gets put in jail he struggles even more. He finds that his family is falling apart and the young children are having to work to support the family. At one point a character literally gets eaten by rats due to bad working conditions. Another theme is corruption. In the beginning of the book Jurgis is a hardworking family man, but by the end he is a stealing thief. It is apparent that living in a place where police are out for themselves and salesmen lie for their own profit, can change you as a person. Jurgis gets so obsessed with money that he beat a child to make him go to work, when he knew that in the freezing winter the child might get frostbite (which he eventually did). Another theme is about society and class in early 20th century Chicago. Jurgis' family comes to America because they think that if they come to America and work hard, then they will get money and succeed. It is as if they think that
In today's society, relationships of all different kinds become more and more accepted each day. However, when it comes to interracial relationships, people still hold opposing viewpoints on the matter. For the most part, peoples' viewpoints all boil down to two beliefs; the traditional belief and the popular culture belief. People who follow the traditional belief are seen as more proud of and loyal to their culture/heritage and tend to be more segregated than others. They feel that when someone of their own culture dates someone outside of their own culture, he or she is "wanting to escape" from his or her cultural identity. On the other hand, popular culture belief sees people not by the color of their skin nor by their culture, but rather
A major theme of The Jungle is socialism as a remedy for the evils of capitalism. Every event that takes place in the novel is designed to show a particular failure of capitalism. Sinclair attempts to show that capitalism is a "system of chattel slavery" and the working class is subject to "the whim of en every bit as brutal and unscrupulous as the old-time slave drivers"(Sinclair 126). Sinclair portrays this view through Jurgis, a hardworking Lithuanian immigrant and his family. Sinclair uses the hardships faced by this family to demonstrate the effect of capitalism on working people as a whole. Jurgis' philosophy of "I will work harder" is shown not to work in this system. No matter how hard Jurgis worked, he and his family were still stuck in the same squalor. These characters did not overcome the odds and succeed. That would defeat the purpose of the novel; to depict capitalism as an economic and social system that ignores the plight of the working class and only cares for the wealthy, as well as furthering his socialist agenda.
The wealthy white men had money and recourses, and the poor immigrants did not, so the white business men virtually controlled the city and the courts. When Jurgis found out about Connor raping his wife, he attacked him. Jurgis was arrested, and because the poor immigrants didn’t have a voice in the court system back then, The Judge would not believe him when he explained that Connor raped his wife. Instead, the Judge sided with Conner with no proof at all, and Jurgis was put back in jail, and he had to pay for the costs of the trial. It would have been easy to send the immigrants to prison any time they stepped out of line because they could not afford lawyers, and did not have much of a say in the court system because they weren’t white. They were seen as less than whites and that they needed to be put in their
...ous struggles of Jurgis and his family. Not only does the family suffer from poverty, but they also suffer from a poor knowledge of English, the glares of the townspeople, and the damaging effects of hard manual labor. The family gets harmed by the bosses in Packingtown as well, they receive unfair wages for long days at work. They also get deceived by the housing agent, forcing them to pay much more money for the house as a result of insurance, an expense they were not prepared for. As a result of the hard manual labor and his name being put on the blacklist, Jurgis resorts to “hoboing it” just to survive towards the end of the novel. The poverty tears the family apart: they end up splitting up towards the end of the novel, all going separate ways. Poverty negatively impacted the familial relationships of thousands of immigrants in Chicago in the early 1900s.
Using the symbol of the camps, Steinbeck illustrates the illusion of communism. The idea of communism is working together. The migrant camps are described as “a world” (ch.17; 265) and in the mornings are “torn down like a circus” (ch.17; 265). Through the illusion of Communistic ideas in the camp, the migrants are able to escape the realities of Capitalism. The camps are the migrants’ own worlds, created on the idea of a better life in California. Comparing the camps to a circus indicates the camps stand as an illusion, because like a circus, it is an escape from reality. Circus performers create an alternate world in the stunts and acts they perform. The description of the camps shows the reader the migrants’ illusion of Communism against the reality of Capitalism. The description of the Weedpatch camp is another of Steinbeck’s examples of Communism. As the Joads come across the camp, they notice “a high wire fence fac[ing] the road and a wide-gated driveway turn[ing] in” (ch. 22; 389). The fence separates the camp from the real worl...
Built off of the backs of immigrants, it is the very same people that are poorly mistreated but are the reason for the country's booming economy. Yet, a century ago these migrant workers who devoted their health and time to the factories receive a poor man’s salary. They worked long strenuous hours in horrible conditions and would often get injured during the process. The corporation had no compassion towards its laborers. This extract from Sinclair’s novel The Jungle explains the terrible conditions in which employees worked: “...your hand slips up on the blade, and there is a fearful gash. And that would not be so bad, only for the deadly contagion. The cut may heal, but you never can tell,” (Sinclair, 12). Mikalos, a character in the novel, is used in this instance to personify the way in which the employees had to conduct their job. They had to focus on working as fast as humanly possible even if they were injured. The character states that he accidently made a laceration while deboning an animal. Even though his injury is significant, he is not to breathe a word of it to his employer. The employer cares not of the accident nor of the worker wasting valuable time chatting about “frivolous” events such as their health. It did not matter if a laborer lost a finger, the only thing that mattered to the businessmen was making more money. This was how life was working in the factory and it shows that the industries
We are living in a colorful world. There are many different people live with different cultures. But, what makes so many differences in our world? According to the story of In the Jungle and my personal experiences, our lives are affected by living condition, natural resources and social environment around us.
The real story is about Lithuanian immigrants who move to the stockyards of Chicago in hopes of a better life. Unfortunately, their hopes are quickly dashed. Like thousands of other untrained immigrants their need for money forces them into horrible work in order to make ends meet. In the story, he is being shown the different factories and rooms in which the animals are killed and made into the meat which "fed America". The book uses vivid descriptions and makes the atmosphere seem really quite nauseating.
In today’s world immigration and emigration has vastly increased. With these increased movements around the world, the lack of communication creates many consequences. Without a language in common the attempt at communication is a difficult process. In The Jungle, Upton Sinclair explores the consequences of language barriers through a new immigrant family. The Lithuanian family do not have the language skills required for their new life in America and everyday life is a struggle. The problems that rise from a lack of communication lead to a path of destruction for the family. Additionally, these problems eventually lead to devastation, manipulation and cause mental and physical health issues. So, Sinclair presents the consequences they face from inadequate communication in a negative light. The language barriers in the story seem to cause horrific and severe incidents to the characters. Also, in the short story, “In the Waiting Room”, David Sedaris explores consequences due to his personal language barrier in his time in Paris. He explores different incidents he has experienced due to little knowledge about the French language. Even though consequences arise from his misfortune, Sedaris turns his personal stories into humorous stories. Thus the approach Sedaris takes lowers the severity of the consequences and makes the story more entertaining and appealing. While both texts use a story to demonstrate the faults of miscommunication, literary elements can be used to show differences in the text. Therefore, Sedaris and Sinclair use similar techniques to express similar themes, but the difference in tone, point of view and plot arrangement of the texts demonstrates the theme of the texts contrastingly.
Foer provides us with countless information regarding the cruelty animals face, a result of factory farming. The living conditions for animals in this industry can be very disturbing and inhumane, and the slaughtering process of these animals is just as bad. In the “Hiding / Seeking” chapter, Foer shares with his readers the degradation of the animals he encounters at factory farms he’s investigated. He uses imagery to colorfully recount his experiences on these farms “There are tens of thousands of turkey chicks. Fist-sized, with feathers the color of sawdust, they’re nearly invisible on the sawdust floor.” (Foer, pg. 88) Here Foer is giving us a visual that emphases the horror these animals face. As his investigation prolongs he stumbles upon a locked door, Foer says “nothing will unsettle me more than the locked doors. Nothing will better capture the whole sad business of...