“If any one of these onlookers came sufficiently close, or looked sufficiently hungry, a chair was offered him, and he was invited to the feast.” (Sinclair, 2) This was one of the interesting laws about the wedding feast in the forests of Lithuania where Ona Lukoszaite, Jurgis Rudkus, and their family lived before immigrating to Chicago. In Lithuania, Ona's family troubled by debt, since her father died. Heard about America was a free country, they decided to leave their homeland. Jurgis loved Ona and wanted to marry her. Therefore, he decided to go with her family. After six months immigrated to Chicago, this young couple celebrated their veselija in Packingtown that was Chicago's Meatpacking District in the early 1900s. Their wedding was …show more content…
the beginning of the sweet would come from two people as well as their family and friends. However, they owed more than a hundred dollars after the traditional wedding. Jurgis with his optimism said that he would work harder and paid them all. The first problem that Sinclair mentioned in The Jungle was working conditions at Packingtown.
The adults were Jurgis, Marija Berczynskas, Ona’s cousin, Teta Elzbieta, Ona’s stepmother and, Jonas, the brother of Ona’s stepmother quickly found work. Their initial plan was the children went to school and Ona was stay at home. As the family’s living expenses increased, Ona and little Stanislovas, one of Teta Elzbieta’s children, were also forced to look for jobs. “Teta Elzbieta had taken Stanislovas to the priest and gotten a certificate to the effect that he was two years older than he was.” (Sinclair, 59) Little Stanislovas was not old enough to work, but they were falsifying age and he was able to work. Besides, Dede Antanas wanted to work to help the family, although he was already 60 years old. After agreeing to pay another man a third of his wages for helping him obtain the job, old Antanas started working in "pickle room" in Durham’s cellars. Since then, these people started working to earn money with all their strength to cover the cost of life and hope they would better off in the future. Soon, they realized that the work they were doing too heavy and unsafe conditions, especially with old Antanes. The place he worked as dark tunnel, and did not have heating. Moreover, "his feet were soaked in chemicals, and it was not long before they had eaten through his new boots" (Sinclair, 64). After a period of work, old Antanas constant coughed and became more intense day by …show more content…
day. Until one day, he could not resist further and broke down, although the family had asked a doctor for him. Harsh conditions and insecurity of jobs in Packingtown made Jurgis lose his beloved father. Snow white everywhere in Packingtown in winter, “sometimes the temperature will drop only ten or twenty degrees below zero at night, and in the morning the streets would be piled with snowdrifts up to the first-floor windows” (Sinclair, 66). But at the killing beds, the men were not equipped heating. They had to get warm their body by “tie up their feet in newspapers and old sacks, and then soaked again, and so on, until by nighttime a man would be walking on great lumps the size of the feet of an elephant” (Sinclair, 67). When the boss did not pay attention, they even put their feet dipped in steaming water so they did not freeze. If working in the killing beds in winter could freeze from the cold, the pickle rooms were the place where corrosive acids knuckles. Besides, in the chilling rooms, special disease was rheumatism. Moreover, “there were those who made the tins for the canned meat; and their hands, too, were a maze of cuts, and each cut represented a chance for blood poisoning” (Sinclair, 82). However, the worst of them were the fertilizer men and those who served in the cooking rooms, the fertilizer clinging odor of their bodies may frighten anyone within hundreds of yards. “They had been overworked and underfed so long, and finally some disease had laid them on their backs; or they had cut themselves, and had blood poisoning, or met with some other accident.” (Sinclair, 103) The first day arrived Packingtown, they were young people who full of optimistic and hopeful. They simply thought that this place was a place would help them change their fate. However, day after day, working in unsafe conditions and too hard made them exhausted. There were many unfortunate labor accidents occurred to them; however, the result they get was their place in the factory was replaced by others. The workers were working hard, but they did not get the factory owners cares about labor safety and hygiene situation where they spent most of the time of day. They were mistreated. The second problem exists at Packingtown was politics.
Jurgis joined the union because he thought that "belonging to a union meant an end to all their troubles" (Sinclair, 74). Next he learned English, and had become a citizen of the Republic party. Becoming a US citizen seem as an encouraging step forward on the path towards achieving the American dream, but Jurgis tainted by corruption. Jurgis knew that there are two political parties; and in this Stockyard, the Democratic Party always carried everything. A little Irishman named Mike Scully was a Democratic boss, hold an important role in the state and was a big boss at slaughterhouses. Scully was the most powerful man that Jurgis has ever known. “A note signed by him was equal to a job any time at the packing houses.” (Sinclair, 78) There were a lot of people made friends with him for various personal purposes. The factories in Packingtown always worked at full capacity and performance in a long time has provided a significant amount of the product as well as lucrative profits for those who own them. It would not have anything to say if the production did not affect the external environment. However, "the grease and chemicals that are poured into an arm of the Chicago River, undergo all sorts of strange transformations... have caked solid, and the creek looks like a bed of lava” (Sinclair, 78). Moreover, “the packers had secret mains, through which they stole billions of gallons of the city's water” (Sinclair, 79). The
secrets might have existed for a long time before they were discovered. But no one was punished because the powerful people had impacted to disable all. The people of Chicago saw the government inspectors in Packingtown, and they all took that to mean that they were protected from diseased meat; they did not understand that these hundred and sixty-three inspectors had been appointed at the request of the packers, and that they were paid by the United States government to certify that all the diseased meat was kept in the state. (Sinclair, 79) This is one of the characteristics of capitalism. Similarly, when a new agreement had to be signed between the packers and the unions, many strikes had emerged by the new agreement unjust to workers. Besides the new agreement applied only to the skilled workers, their wages had been reduced significantly compared with the past. The unions had wished to improve the minimum wage for all workers, but they had not succeeded. The launch of the new agreement did not only bring a negative signal about wages, but also a threat to the living costs of a lot of workers. The reason for the failed negotiations of unions was that there were millions people who were seeking employment. It meant that the supply workers were overloaded and the packers could find alternative employment at any time. Therefore, the packers did not let "the union stewards march into their places and bind them to a contract that would lose them several thousand dollars a day for a year? Not much!" (Sinclair, 221) These giant factories in Packingtown had enough confidence and power to manipulate the working class for their service, wages and the market for their products.
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):
Rings and alliances within political forces allowed powerful individuals to dictate the outcomes of decisions that would further increase their power and influence. By exploiting the desperation of powerless workers and immigrants, prominent figures like Mike Scully were able to rig elections, keeping specific people in power by buying votes with money replaceable to him, but invaluable to the desperate. The democratic party, to which Scully belonged, remained in power by giving the poor man so little that he was eager to undertake any task for the sake of money. When Jurgis was offered bribes for his vote, he realized that it was not “supposed to be right” to sell his vote, but also that refusing the money would not make “the slightest difference in the results” (Sinclair 134). Sacrificing the bribing money to take a stand was not an expenditure that the poor man could afford, and the working class was thus forced to facilitate the medium of their
Lina Vilkas is a fifteen year old girl who is the protagonist of this story. She was taken, by the NKVD, from her house with her mother and brother to exile. Later in the story she meets Andrius and falls in love with him. She marries him after the war while moving from place to place. Andrius uses his misfortune as a fortune to help others. He takes care of Lina and her family as best he can. Nikolai Kretzsky is a young NKVD officer who helps Lina and her mother even after Lina insulted him. Mr Stalas is a Jew who is deported with the other people. He wanted to die with dignity. He is often referred to as The Bald Man. He confesses that he was liable for the deportation. Janina is a starry-eyed young girl who likes to help others and to talk to her "dead" doll. When few selected people are brought to the North Pole for more suffering, dozens of people die from cholera and pneumonia. Lina however, survives and manages to save Jonas and Janina with the help of Nikolai Kretzsky.
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 Jungle, Sinclair deeply understands his subjects and can make the plots real for the reader. Even in a small section of the book, Sinclair makes me feel, imagine and contemplate his words. Chapters 18 through 23, were chapters that Sinclair took time and effort to write and make it to perfection. In my own perspective, I think he achieved this accomplishment and made these chapters a realistic event.
lies that runs the Packingtown. This time period had a lot of Union members who wanted
During the late 1800's and early 1900's hundreds of thousands of European immigrants migrated to the United States of America. They had aspirations of success, prosperity and their own conception of the American Dream. The majority of the immigrants believed that their lives would completely change for the better and the new world would bring nothing but happiness. Advertisements that appeared in Europe offered a bright future and economic stability to these naive and hopeful people. Jobs with excellent wages and working conditions, prime safety, and other benefits seemed like a chance in a lifetime to these struggling foreigners. Little did these people know that what they would confront would be the complete antithesis of what they dreamed of.
A narcissist is one who believes “he or she is ‘special’ and unique and can only be understood by, or should associate with, other special” people. They exploit others for their own advantage, lack empathy, and are “preoccupied with fantasies” or ideals that can be unrealistic. They believe they are the “primary importance in everybody’s life”. (“Narcissistic Personality”) Henry James’ theme in his short story, “The Beast in the Jungle”, is about a man, who is so egotistical and self-absorbed that he misses what life has to offer him, in particular, love, because of the narcissistic behavior he is doomed to live a life of loneliness and misery. John Marcher, the protagonist of “The Beast in the Jungle”, is about a narcissistic upper-class man who believes his life is to be defined by some unforetold event. He focuses only on himself and as a result, he neglects everything and everyone in his life. Marcher meets May Bartram, a woman who knows his secret, and instead of pursuing a romantic relationship with her, or even a genuine friendship, he uses her for his own benefit. Henry James utilizes a variety of literary devices to convey this theme in his story, such as the title, symbolism, dialogue, and the use of a limited third-person narrative. Henry James leaves us our first clue to the theme in the title, “The Beast in the Jungle”. When one thinks of a beast, they typically imagine something big and ferocious; Marcher’s ego was just that.
“The Jungle,” written by Upton Sinclair in 1906, describes how the life and challenges of immigrants in the United States affected their emotional and physical state, as well as relationships with others. The working class was contrasted to wealthy and powerful individuals who controlled numerous industries and activities in the community. The world was always divided into these two categories of people, those controlling the world and holding the majority of the power, and those being subjected to them. Sinclair succeeded to show this social gap by using the example of the meatpacking industry. He explained the terrible and unsafe working conditions workers in the US were subjected to and the increasing rate of corruption, which created the feeling of hopelessness among the working class.
The “Tragedy of the Commons” is an inevitable result of human nature coined by ecologist Garrett Hardin in his 1968 article of the same name. In the article Hardin reports that open resources such as game animals or rivers, “commons”, will be destroyed due to natural human selfishness by the individual. This is clear in the case of overfishing in Peru, for example, which environmental historian Gregory Cushman discusses in his book on Peruvian fishing industries. Hardin provides two solutions: either privatization or mutual coercion agreed upon by those most affected. Due to globalization the people who are most affected are far too diverse to collectively agree to cut back on consumption. The cause of over consumption no longer lies upon the
In 1953, Ernest Hemingway and his wife, Mary, accompanied by photographer Earl Theisen, traveled to Kenya in what turned out to be the waning years of the grand African safari. Soon after, a wave of independence swept the continent, which had largely been under European domination since the end of the last century. And as people worldwide became increasingly aware of their environment and the threats to it, the notion of killing animals for sport began to be looked at in a different light. While the heyday of the African safari may be in the past, our society has legacies from that era that require knowledge of the safari. A key to understanding Hemingway is his obsession with the African safari.
In the early 1900's life for America's new Chicago immigrant workers in the meat packing industry was explored by Upton Sinclair's novel The Jungle. Originally published in 1904 as a serial piece in the socialist newspaper Appeal to Reason, Sinclair's novel was initially found too graphic and shocking by publishing firms and therefore was not published in its complete form until 1906. In this paper, I will focus on the challenges faced by a newly immigrated worker and on what I feel Sinclair's purpose was for this novel.
What is the American Dream? The American Dream is the conviction that in America every individual has the opportunity for self-fulfilment. That may be the idea but it is not the reality. In the United States today the American Dream is only available to a select few at the top. They enjoy the many pleasures in life while the rest of the country struggles to make ends meet. The American dream ended more than a hundred years ago due to major income inequality and a decrease in the educated populist. The American Dream as we know it is dead.
In the Sinclair Lewis novel, Babbitt, the main character is a man who lives his whole life under the presumption that the only way to be happy is to follow society. Daily, he walks the path of right-wing social law, believing that only wealth can bring him happiness. Babbitt eventually makes an effort to change his ways, but is too deep into the system to pull himself from the lifeless abyss of proper society.
The epigraph to "The Sun Also Rises'; contains a quote from Gertrude Stein, saying: "You are all a lost generation';. This proclamation is juxtaposed with the passage from the beginning of the Book of Ecclesiastes: "One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh: but the earth abideth for ever';. The message of the former quote clearly conveys that the WW1 generation, of which Jake Barns, Robert Cohn, Brett Ashley and Mike Campbell are the representatives, is forever deprived of moral, emotional, spiritual and physical values. On the other hand, the latter passage gives a lot of hope: "The sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth down, and hasteth to his place where he arose.'; This statement, from which the title of the novel comes, as well as the content of the whole Book of Ecclesiastes, may be the reason for upholding this hope, the hope given by the rising Sun, the hope of forever abiding Earth.