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The american dream in american literature
The american dream in american literature
The american dream in american literature
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The Hero of The Jungle
The novel, The Jungle, shows the life of the main character, Jurgis Ruckus. Jurgis is a Lithuanian man who moves to the Packingtown district of Chicago, Illinois (Jungle 1). Once he arrives in Packingtown, Jurgis marries Ona, who is also from Lithuania (Jungle 1). Ona and Jurgis start a family together, and they work in factories that contain awful working conditions and receive terrible treatment and low wages from their employers. They live with Ona’s family and constantly struggle to make ends meet. The family’s lives quickly take a turn for the worst and Jurgis goes on a downward spiral. In The Jungle, Jurgis is the tragic hero because he tries to provide his family with the America dream, is an avid socialist activist, and even though he has many flaws, they are simply a result of his surroundings.
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He believed that he could have a family, a successful job, and a house in America and that life would much better than it was in Lithuania. Jurgis has a hard time forgetting this dream even when he was faced with adversity. He persevered because he wanted to give his family the best life that was possible. When scoundrels tried to cheat Jurgis or his family out of opportunities or attacked him or his family, Jurgis responded angrily because he wanted to defend them. Jurgis’ only intention was to protect his families and their
The book is set in the early 1900's in Chicago; a time when true industrialization had come to the United States, and immigrant populations soared (numbersusa.com). The story begins with the traditional Lithuanian wedding of Jurgis and his sixteen year old bride, Ona. The wedding is one that they can barely afford, and sets the backdrop for the changes that they are just beginning to encounter in their new country. Immigrants with peasant backgrounds had begun to arrive in the United States en masse during the late 1890's from places such as Ireland, Poland, Italy, and Lithuania (numbersusa.com). These people were ill equipped to deal with the harsh realities of urban living in America at the time. In his book Sinclair shows how capitalism creates pressures that undermine the traditional family life, cultural ties, and moral values that these immigrants had brought with them. With "literally not a month's wages between them and starvation" workingmen are under pressure to abandon their families, woman must sometimes choose between starvation and prostitution. Children are forced to work rather then attend school, just to keep starvation away for one more day.
The economic problems of both stories were great. Jurgis (The Jungle) wishes to go to America to get rich. Buying a house stresses the whole idea of animals to have something that is theirs. This is also shown with the Joads. They go to California in search of money and something of their own as well. Both, however, are faced with strong economic problems. For Jurgis, it is the poor manag...
In the world of economic competition that we live in today, many thrive and many are left to dig through trashcans. It has been a constant struggle throughout the modern history of society. One widely prescribed example of this struggle is Upton Sinclair's groundbreaking novel, The Jungle. The Jungle takes the reader along on a journey with a group of recent Lithuanian immigrants to America. As well as a physical journey, this is a journey into a new world for them. They have come to America, where in the early twentieth century it was said that any man willing to work an honest day would make a living and could support his family. It is an ideal that all Americans are familiar with- one of the foundations that got American society where it is today. However, while telling this story, Upton Sinclair engages the reader in a symbolic and metaphorical war against capitalism. Sinclair's contempt for capitalist society is present throughout the novel, from cover to cover, personified in the eagerness of Jurgis to work, the constant struggle for survival of the workers of Packingtown, the corruption of "the man" at all levels of society, and in many other ways.
In the novel, Duggan, Montayj depicts the consequences of lacking a proper education. Through the use of a character named Jackie, Montayj enables the reader to learn about the reality of poverty through her experiences and actions.
The main theme of these 6 chapters is "The lie of the American Dream". Jurgis thought by coming here to the United States, he would find everything easy, but everything turned against his wishes. In chapter 18, he's out of jail, free, only to find someone else in his home. He realized that his family had lost their home because of lack of money, and because he wasn't there when they needed him the most. Later finding them and finding his wife giving birth with complications and smelling death around him. Is a very shocking and yet horrifying idea.
Jurgis once hope to embrace as he lived the “American dream” is nothing more than
Sinclair, has shown in a dramatic style the hardships and obstacles which Jurgis and fellow workers had to endure. He made the workers sound so helpless and the conditions so gruesome, that the reader almost wants a way out for Jurgis. Sinclair's The Jungle is a "subliminal" form of propaganda for
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.
To be concise, Jurgis and his family faced various challenges in America. As a result, their lives changed, for better or for worse. They were inexperienced, and therefore made many mistakes, which made their life in Chicago very worrisome. However, their ideology and strong belief in determination and hard work kept them alive. In a land swarming with predators, this family of delicate prey found their place and made the best of it, despite the fact that America, a somewhat disarranged and hazardous jungle, was not the wholesome promise-land they had predicted it to be.
In the early twentieth century, one after the other, steamboats rolled into the new land shore hauling immigrants by the two thousand, each optimistic about their plans to forge the American Dream. Well into the Industrial Revolution, it was a promising time for production and business, however, only for those in power. The hopeful and tireless could not climb the ladder of opportunity without stepping on top of others to get ahead. Jurgis, the main character of The Jungle, represents this idea as he battles capitalism first failing with hard work and later with corruption. Upton Sinclair, the author, develops the idea that rising up social classes is restricted by individual traits that limit people from changing between the classes. These same defining qualities can be found in our social classes today. Because of these barriers, there
The book, The Jungle, written by Upton Sinclair, has portrayed how conditions and social norms of the early 1900’s helped shape society through social reform. Sexism, racism, and class, shaped the experiences and choices of the immigrants in The Jungle throughout the book. The huge difference between the classes was the most significant of the three. Sinclair used the story of one immigrant and his family to help show what was going on in society at that time, to raise awareness, and to promote socialism.
A muckraking novel about the Chicago meatpacking industry, The Jungle follows Jurgis Rudkus on his move to the big city of beautiful America. Or so he thought. As a Lithuanian immigrant, Jurgis has less opportunities to be successful in such a thriving business. He begins his journey in a comparably easier job than some men can achieve, sweeping the fallen remains of animals into a room where they are thrown in with the rest of the “healthy” meat. When Jurgis loses this job after an injury, he finds work at the only place left hiring: the fertilizer mills. The stench of him is incapable of removal until he takes his first bath in a stream—only after leaving Chicago. Jurgis leaves Chicago to travel the countryside in search of food and pay.
Moreover, Jurgis does everything he can to help his family and himself survive, but regardless of his actions, the corrupt society plows through him without remorse or regret. Jurgis's op...
The primary character of the book Jurgis, who is a healthy, hardworking guy goes to Chicago willing to do what has to be done, so that his family will have a decent life. Instead of the opportunity to understand and live the American dream, he meets absolutely horrendous working conditions in the slaughter house, gets laid off when business is slow, sees his wife assaulted, goes to prison during Christmas for defending her, just to get out of the correctional facility just in time to see his wife die while in labor, and he also sees his child die as well. I don’t know how Jurgis was able to stay sane, because his life since immigrants to Packingtown sucked, but then when Jurgis found and join the socialist political party his life just getting better. He was inspired, reunited with his lost family, and runs a
In The Jungle a young man named Jurgis Rudkus moves to the United States landing in Chicago, with his family looking for a better life then what they had in Lithuania. They arrived in Chicago in the middle of where the meat packing industry was located. Landing here was going to provide them with jobs so they could pay rent for a place to stay for the whole family and to purchase food to eat. Once Jurgis gets a job working in the meat packaging plant is when the family realizes that America no better then Lithuania. America had poor people and people are killing each other just to survive. The workers where poorly paid, overworked and had unfair labor practice as well as dangerous working environment. In order for them to get a place to stay all where required to work, this even meant Jurgis father who was sick.