The United States of America is known as the land of opportunity and dreams. People dream of migrating to this nation for a chance of a better a life. This belief has been around for many years, ever since the birth of the United States; therefore it’s a factor in which motivate many people migrate to the United States. Upton Sinclair, author of the Jungle, narrates the life of a Lithuanian family and there struggles with work, crime, family loss, and survival in the city of Packingtown. Sinclair expresses her disgust as well as the unbelievable truth of life in the United States involving politics, corruption, and daily struggle that many suffered through in the 19th and 20th century. Jurgis Rudkus, is a Lithuanian young man who is strong, …show more content…
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 …show more content…
Ona was a beautiful women that was able to maintain Jurgis’s humanity in check. Ona wanted to help Jurgis once they arrived to the states. She first served as errand girl along with her stepmother Teta Elzbieta. Their first major assignment was finding a place to call their home, as well as determine if the cost is doable for the members in the family. After discussing the selection of an ideal home, their next assignment was preparing the contract and payment of the house. Both women were skeptical of the agreements, and lacked the knowledge and even the language to defend themselves. The translator and their lawyer were not helping them in their decision, but they end up purchasing and agreeing to the terms of the contract (Sinclair, “The Jungle”, 37)*. Later, she discovers that their original plan was not going to work out, since they failed to realize hidden details of the house agreement; such as taxes, water fees, insurance fees, and city fees. This led to other members of the family including Little Ona to have a job. She managed to get a job sewing covers on hams at a cellar. Though it was not an ideal job, beggars can’t be choosers, and Jurigs had to accept. Moreover, Ona became pregnant and had her first child, Antanas. Even though the child was healthy, Ona had to return to work immediately. This led her health to decline, since she couldn’t fully recuperate after
Dinesh D’Souza constructs an argument in his essay “What’s so great about America” that is convincing to the average reader. His essay was published 15 years ago and American culture has seen some changes since then. However, nothing that he mentions specifically in the essay has changed drastically. His extrinsic ethos is strong because he is from India and the audience may perceive that he can compare his knowledge of living elsewhere to an immigrant’s knowledge. This view of looking at America from an outsider’s point of view and how others view living in America is essential in D’Souza’s fundamental argument. He compares living in America to living in other less developed countries and appeals to the common citizen in his style, logic, and development of his essay. His arguments are sound and he convinces the average citizen that America is the best place to live, although his lack of facts and statistics to back up his statements could be seen as a weakness.
Emerson wrote, “Times of terror are times of eloquence.” Based on your reading of Bitzer’s article, what does this sentiment mean to you? Given your understanding, illustrate this concept by providing three illustrations, one each from the three different contexts indicated below, a(n):
The American dream is the belief that anyone, regardless of birthplace, social class, or economic class, can attain success in the American society. Sadly, countless people will never achieve success in this society because they are foreign born. In Warren St. John’s book Outcasts United, St. John sheds light onto the numerous hardships that the tiny American town of Clarkston faces when thousands of refugees attempt to create a brand-new life there. At first Clarkston stood completely divided by original residents and refugees, but it wasn’t until the refugees and old residents saw past their physical differences of language, culture, and past life experiences that Clarkston began to thrive. Although the majority of projects started out helping
Dubbed as “The Greatest Country in the World” by god knows who, America is not as awesome and free as some may see. In doing a close reading of Heather Christle’s “Five Poems for America”, we can see how the author uses metaphors to portray a flawed American, specifically within its political system, religion, obsession with technology and basic human rights. Americans have been living with the oppression of these everyday issues, completely oblivious thus creating the America we infamously know today.
Upton Sinclair's Purpose in Writing The Jungle Upton Sinclair wrote this book for a couple of reasons. First and foremost, he tries to awaken the reader to the terrible. living conditions of immigrants in the cities around the turn of the century. Chicago has the most potent examples of these. conditions.
In the early 1900's, strikes, riots, labor unions, and new political parties arose across the country. The government, with its laissez-faire attitude, allowed business to consolidate into trusts, and with lack of competition, into powerful monopolies. These multi-million dollar monopolies were able to exploit every opportunity to make greater fortunes regardless of human consequences. Sinclair illustrates the harsh conditions in Packingtown through a Lithuanian immigrant family and their struggles to survive. Ona, a young and frail woman, and Jurgis, a hardworking and strong man and the husband of Ona, come to America with some of their family to find work and to make a new and better life for themselves. With everyone finding employment right away, the family begins their lives in America with optimism, enthusiasm, and ignorance. Taking a huge risk, they purchase a small rickety house. Slowly, they awaken to the harsh realities of their surroundings. There's the mortg...
A well-discussed debate among today’s economy is the issues concerning immigrants and their yearning desire to become American citizens. As displayed in The Jungle, a rather perturbing novel about the trials and ruthless temptations early America presents to a Lithuanian family, adjusting to new surrounding and a new way of life is quite difficult. To make matters worse, language barriers and lack of domestic knowledge only seems to entice starvation and poverty among newly acquired citizens, who simply wish to change their social and economic lives to better themselves and their families.
Discuss how Upton Sinclair portrays the economic tensions and historical processes at hand in the late 19th and early 20th centuries
Employment is hard to find and hard to keep and a job isn’t always what one hoped for. Sometimes jobs do not sufficiently support our lifestyles, and all too frequently we’re convinced that our boss’s real job is to make us miserable. However, every now and then there are reprieves such as company holiday parties or bonuses, raises, promotions and even a half hour or hour to eat lunch that allows escape from monotonous workloads. Aside from our complaints, employment today for majority of American’s isn’t totally dreadful, and there always lies opportunity for promotion. American’s did not always experience this reality in their work places though, and not long past are days of abysmal and disgusting work conditions. In 1906 Upton Sinclair’s “The Jungle” was published. His novel drastically transformed the way Americans felt about the unmitigated power corporations wielded in the ‘free’ market economy that was heavily propagandized at the turn of the century. Corporations do not have the same unscrupulous practices today because of actions taken by former President Theodore Roosevelt who felt deeply impacted by Sinclair’s famous novel. Back in early 1900’s in the meatpacking plants of Chicago the incarnation of greed ruled over the working man and dictated his role as a simple cog within an enormous insatiable industrial machine. Executives of the 1900’s meatpacking industry in Chicago, IL, conspired to work men to death, obliterate worker’s unions and lie to American citizens about what they were actually consuming in order to simply acquire more money.
“House of Earth,” by Woody Guthrie and “The Jungle” by Upton Sinclair have a powerful view on the United States claim to freedom. Guthrie and Sinclair present different situations because of the time period in which each work was written but the similarities between the characters, conditions and consequences of living in the United States are significant. In these stories, the main characters experience different journeys, but they both endure hope and disappointment that leads them to recognize their dreams, shaped by the stereotype of the American dream, are unreachable because of the restrictions they have. Guthrie and Sinclair use their works to show us that the United States lacks the freedom it claims to have by presenting Tike and
Is it possible to achieve the American Dream? This ideal of achieving the American Dream came back in the early 1900’s. Immigrants who traveled from all over the world to the United States were searching for better job opportunities and comfortable homes. They sought to conquer wealth and provide an upper lifestyle for their families. Also, this ideal is pretty much existed today, but in a more realistic approach. Different from before, now there is a vast of resources that are available so people can have choices before they decide to invest their money on a new business or buy a new property. The Jungle by Upton Sinclair is based on the story of an immigrant family who came from Lithuania to the United States. This family arrived to Packingtown
“My mother believed you could be anything you wanted to be in America. You could open a restaurant. Your could work for the government and get good retirement. You could buy a house with almost no money down. You could become rich. You could become instantly famous.” These are some of the dreams that Jing-Mei’s mother in Amy Tan’s Two Kinds has of America. She is not alone. Millions of people come to America to make these dreams come true, like the Indian’s Tribe in Sherman Alexie’s The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven. They all come with their parents to America in hope of finding a better living to get away from the politics in their countries. Their parents or people putting enormous pressure on them to succeed, in the end it proves to be too much for them and the live mediocre lives.
The tone of the short story “America and I” changed dramatically over the course of the narrative. The author, Anzia Yezierska, started the story with a hopeful and anxious tone. She was so enthusiastic about arriving in America and finding her dream. Yezierska felt her “heart and soul pregnant with the unlived lives of generations clamouring for expression.” Her dream was to be free from the monotonous work for living that she experienced back in her homeland. As a first step, she started to work for an “Americanized” family. She was well welcomed by the family she was working for. They provided the shelter Yezierska need. She has her own bed and provided her with three meals a day, but after a month of working, she didn’t receive the wage she was so
Ona, a once cheerful woman who sang “like a bird” became so tired and miserable that she would fall into silence and go home without a word and proceed to depart for work in the morning and come back home exhausted. At night she would suffer and start weeping about her troubles and all the stress that she was going through. Ona, however, was not as numb as some of the others, when it was known that she was with child she started breaking down and becoming hysterical causing Jurgis to question why he would want to be with her since she was causing him so much trouble. Ona would then attempt to pull herself together and beg Jurgis to stay with
At first, we were a nation of immigrants that prospered in a way that people have never seen. America is known as the land of opportunity, we have innovativeness, and when you really work hard you can definitely make a change for yourself. Turner coins American development by the westward movement. Moving west, and tapping the resources given to us is what made us different. Turner’s thesis is, “The existence of an area of free land, its continuous recession, and the advance of American settlement westward, explain[s] American development. The idea that success came from moving west. This idea wraps up how America became the nation to be.