the jungle essay

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Recommended: Immigration from 1880 to 1920

The Jungle, a novel by Upton Sinclair, deals with many issues that went on during the early 1900’s. During this time the unemployment was very high, working conditions were awful, wages were low and crime was high. It was not an easy time to be living in America, even though “The American Dream” was on the minds of every immigrant coming to America. In the novel, Jurgis Rudkus and Ona Lukoszaite immigrate to America from Lithuania. They went to Chicago where they met up with some of their family that had already immigrated to America. The couple gets married really young and struggles to make it. Throughout the novel, it follows this family through their journey and struggles to make it as immigrants in America.
Out of all of the themes in this novel, I think that the working conditions during this time were one of the biggest obstacles for this couple. In the Early 1900’s just going to work every day was a risk to your life. The working conditions were dirty, dangerous and the boss’s made the workers work way too many hours. For this immigrant family, this was a big issue. Jurgis gets hurt on the job and is forced to stay home for months with no pay. His family was already struggling, but with him off work it made things even harder for them. When he finally gets better and goes to return to work, they won’t give him his job back. he ends up finding work elsewhere, but that wasn’t the end of the working condition problems for this family.
Marija Berczynskas, Ona’s cousin, and her fiancé Tamoszius are also dealing with the harsh realities of immigration and poor working conditions. They don’t have a lot of money so they keep putting off their wedding. Marija loses her job but then gets it back, only to be fired again for accusi...

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...urs!’”
I thought that the book was okay. It dealt with a lot of different themes and issues going on during this time period, but there were a lot of things I disliked about it. It went back and forth a lot and it took him losing many jobs, losing his wife and 2 kids, going in and out of jail a few times and getting injured a few times for him to learn his lessons. The labor struggles and harsh working conditions were difficult and almost unbearable, but not too long after that the working conditions started to get better. Today we don’t have perfect working conditions, but they are far better than they were back then and they are only getting better.
In conclusion, even though Jurgis dealt with a lot of trials and hard times, he pushed through and came out stronger than he ever was. It doesn’t say what happens later, but I am sure he ends up living a great life.

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