'The American Dream in the Jungle\r'

' many an other(prenominal) immigrants migrate to America e reallyday with the hopes to achieve their Ameri chiffonier dream. For most immigrants the American dream consist of conclusion a coun refine where effort and morality exceed to success. In â€Å"The Jungle” by Upton Sinclair, a family of bad live oning optimistic Lithuanians migrate to America with the public opinion that equality and opportunity dictates that all people should cave in the same opportunities open to them if they put bug protrude efforts. They begin to the US expecting to land a land of opportunity, emancipation, and equality, and acceptance.Instead they be celestial latitude a land where barely crime, moral rotting and crookedness enables them to succeed. The hopes and dreams of these individuals ar sunk as they find 1self a land of moral corruption, crime, exploitation and a tone of depression and unhealthy daily take that brings them physical and mental pain. Sinclair intellig ibly testifys that the American trance is simply an illusion. The title of the book â€Å"The Jungle” cr swallow upes an standard atmosphere of predators and objective standardized survival of the fittest.The predators beingness the criminals and the prey being the Rudkus family. The title of the book epitomizes how the lower shed light on represented by the Rudkus family is being utilize or attacked by the capitalist society and how the country is false into a jungle . Sinclair uses similes and metaphors to demonstrate the comparison amongst animals of the jungle and the people . For example in chapter 15, when Jurgis finds out that Connor â€Å"the great beast” rapes Ona, Jurgis â€Å"eyes were wild and his tomentum cerebri flying, and he was brea topic hoarsely like a wounded bull”.Jurgis â€Å"sprang” into a room to find Connor, â€Å"his prey,” and â€Å"sunk his teeth into the man’s cheek, and when they divide him away he was dripping whit blood, and the runty ribbons of skin where hanging in his mouth” (Sinclair 162). such(prenominal) imagery is portray through out the refreshful. growing is fore submited at the beginning of the story when Jurgis and Ona celebrate their weeding and the invitee refuse to leave silver to pay for the weeding. Ona is pertain that they wont be able to pay for the expenses and that they allow for be in serious debt except Jurgis assures her that he go out work harder and earn all the m unitaryy back. Leave it to me, leave it up to me. I will earn to a greater extent cash-I will work harder” (Sinclair 21). This computer address shows how in the beginning of the novel Jurgis is very optimistic, strong, determine, mobile and, devoted to his family and his new country, being unaw ar of how the establishment whole shebang. Even when the family tries to purchase their new residence which is symbolize by what their American dream is, they get explo ited by the real state agent. Grandmother Majauszkiene tells them â€Å"You argon all alike all the rest, they trick you and eat you animate. They neer sell the house without interest.Get your deed, and see”(Sinclair 73). The ghost of this quote also expresses the jungle atmosphere when she mentions how they are been tricked and eaten a put up. A nonher individual that serves as an opposing root for to the Rudkus family is Phil Connor. He is Ona’s boss at the milling machinery and represents the higher corrupt authority in Chicago. He also rapes and takes advantage of Ona by pushing her into prostitution and makes life harder for Jurgis and his family when he decides to put him in the vitrioliclist, make it absurd for Jurgis to get a new job.He is cl archeozoic an example of some unmatched who hollers his power over others for his take personal profit It is an argument that its up to everyone to do whatever is in their power to be euphoric. By exploiting th e Rudkus family the real estate agent was happy because his American dream is to sell and make as a great deal profit as possible. But up to what break down is it fair to achieve one’s American Dream? It is not fair to exploit other individuals in erect to achieve ones goals and dreams. These people are coming to America unknowingly of how the dust works blind to the ways of capitalism.For example, in chapter 3 Jurgis is portrayed as a naive individual that is not familiar on how the proletariat system works, he is overwhelmed with his new job that he doesn’t guess Jokubus cynicism when he cynically proves out the signs posted that deal cleanliness, â€Å"That was why to Jurgis it seemed almost profanity to speak near the place as did Jokubas, skeptically”. Jurgis was grateful to endure a job and that’s all he knew at the time â€Å"to be impartn a place in it and a share in its wonderful activities was a blessing to be grateful for, as one wa s grateful for the sunshine and the come down” (Sinclair 43).Is not until later on when he starts to hear more and more roughly the snapterness he sees in his co-workers. Another form of exploitation that doesn’t allow Jurgis and his family to achieve their American dream is the farsighted hours of take they must work in order to maintain the family alive. These unhealthy foresightful hours of labor that they must work brings the family physical and mental pain. When Jurgis starts to work in the meat packing plant he is exited and happy to fuck off a job, soon after he discovers that he is engaged in unjust labor activities as well as unsafe pabulum handling.In chapter 11 Jurgis suffers from a terrible adventure at work. The company doctor tells him that hell be laid up for months with a severe ankle and foot injury. The accident poses a terrible problem for the family. Without Jurgis wages, they might starve. â€Å"It was grand that an accident of this so rt, that no man can help, should squander meant such suffering. The bitterness of it was the daily food and confound of Jurgis. It was of no use to them to try to deceive him, he knew as often just about the situation as they did, and he knew that the family might literally starve to goal” (Sinclair 120).Soon after Ona becomes terribly ill with a cough similar to the one that killed Dede Antana, she also becomes pregnant and not long after dies when giving birth. â€Å"They were beaten; they had preoccupied the game, they were brush aside. It was not less tragic because it was so sordid, because that it had to do with wages and grocery bills and rents. They had dreamed of freedom; of a chance to look about them and tally something; to be decent and clean, to see their child pigeonholing up to be strong. And now it was all gone-it would never be! (Sinclair 163) Jurgis and his family have failed in the at pay for to stick to the American dream because the wage slavery and unfair labor practices shatters every aspect of their lives. Not that does the unhealthy labor causes the family physical pain but also mental pain. For example Stanislovas, one of Elzbietas children witnesses a little boy with severe frostbite to his ears that fall off when a man rubs them strongly to try to save them. After that, Stanislovas develops a phobia of the insentient winter and throws a fit before work each day.He doesn’t want to go out in the cold with the fear that his ears are loss to fall off. Also seeing how the food is tasteful becomes a sort of trauma for the characters. Sinclair uses symbolism to show how the torture of the pigs and the meat is symbolic of the middle class. Workers get chewed up just like the meat. It is an argument that if one is working in a slaughterhouse one must have to be strong apt(p) and expect to work with blood, and other bodily fluids that can cause effect.The problem with this argument is that at the exist of a whole factory staff only a few get to be happy, man those workers down on the killing floors are being hurt on a daily bag and get little to no pay. Ironically labor is suppose to be part of the American dream, immigrants buy the farm to the country to find jobs to prosper and make property but in this case the hard long hours of work only corporate towards their family destruction. As the novel progresses the role of family diminishes as the characters become increasingly abuse and battered.For example in chapter 13 Kristoforas, one of Elzbietas children dies, Jurgis is more relief than sad because that only mean that there is one less mouth to feed. The only thing that concerns Jurgis is the expenses for the funeral since they have no money. â€Å"Kristoforas had howled his last howl. No one was really sorry about this except unequal Elzbieta, who was inconsolable. Jurgis announced that so far as he was concerned the child would have to be bury by the city, since they had no mo ney for a funeral” (Sinclair 134).At this point in the novel the main focus is survival and the desperate need for nourishment takes priority over compassion and love, as evidenced by Jurgis’s beating Stanislovas when he doesn’t want to go to work. The unity of the family is destroyed by the poverty, a resoluteness of capitalist economics and it doesn’t allow them to give affection to one another. In chapter 10 it is unvarnished that Ona and Jurgis founding father’t have time for their newborn baby, â€Å"Jurgis had to go to sleep himself. Then in the cockcrow there was no time to look at him, so really the only chance the buzz off had was Sundays.This was more cruel yet for Ona, who ought to have bideed home and nursed the him, the doctors said for her own heath as well as the baby’s, but Ona had to go to work and leave him” (Sinclair 114) Jurgis and Ona aren’t able to approve each other anymore, whenever they talk it is merely about their concerns and worries. â€Å"Talked they had only their worries to talk of- truly it was hard, in such a life, to keep any sentiment alive” (Sinclair 129). Ona doesn’t feel love anymore by Jurgis, she is concerned that the failure is wearing out their love. She wondered if he cared for her as much as ever, if all this misery was not wearing out his love”(Sinclair 130). Sinclair shows how this family has been destroyed by the corruption and greed of others, the tone is very depressing and tragic. In this point of the novel the characters have been consumed from head to toe by the oppression of their job, they don’t even have energy to show emotions such as love, hate, or sadness. Jurgis is clearly a robot to the society that engages in a mo from home to work and back to home just to sleep.Jurgis and his family have become dehumanized and become more zombie like as they are depict with intense imagery â€Å"Jurgis cant not stay angry. T he poor fellow looked like a unsettled ghost, whit his cheeks sunken in and his long black hair straggling into his eyes; he was also discourage to cut it, or think about his appearance. His muscles were wasting away, and what where left wing where soft and flabby. He had no appetite and they couldn’t not afford to tempt in whit any delicacies.It was better, he said, that he shouldn’t not eat, it was saving. ” (Sinclair 127) Some people designate that if Jurgis and Ona never had a baby, the money being utilise for that baby could have been used for other purposes like food or toward their home. having children while having no money is bad. But being happy with the little bit of money they had, Ona and Jurgis didn’t think it would be much of a problems In chapter 10 before Ona gets pregnant, the family has passable money to survive and even has money left to pay little by little his debts. During the early part of winter the family had had money enoug h to live and little over to pay their debts” (Sinclair 105). But Jurgis so gets injured and has no work. When he has no work there is no money flowing into the home, this causes desperation and urgency. It was also part of their American dream, to have kids discoverer them grow and give them an education. â€Å"They were beaten; they had lost the game, they were swept aside. It was not less tragic because it was so sordid, because it had to do with wages and grocery bills and rents.They had dreamed of freedom; of a chance to look about them and learn something; to be decent and clean, to see their child grow up to be strong. And now it was all goneâ€it would never be! They had played the game and they had lost. ” (Sinclair 144). This quote shows how Jurgiss life has been destroyed by the unjust social system that didn’t allow him to achieve his American dream. The American dream is cWork Cited Page Upton Sinclair. The Jungle New York: flyspeck Classic edit ion, 1906\r\n'