The Jungle 991Silko’s novel is not an authoritative record of the
beliefs of all Native Americans or even a spiritual
manifesto of a particular tribe of the Southwest.
Much like Tayo, Silko was of mixed ancestry and
grew up on the edge of reservation society. Addi-
tionally, she spent at least part of her childhood
attending a Catholic school and wrote much of
Ceremony while living in Alaska. If anything, this
novel poetically depicts the challenges of growing
up between cultures and attempting to reconcile
competing belief systems.
James B. Kelley
SiNCLair, uPToN The Jungle (1906)
Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle is a powerful cry for
reform that calls for changes in working conditions
and justice for the working class. The novel also
exposes the Chicago meatpackers’ practice of selling
contaminated meat to the American public. When
it was published in 1906, The Jungle drew national
attention to the atrocities taking place in Chicago’s
meatpacking industry. In response, Congress passed
the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906.
The Jungle tells the story of the Rudkus family’s
immigration from Lithuania to America; the central
character is Jurgis Rudkus. The first half of the novel
focuses on Jurgis and Ona Lukoszaite and their
dreams for a happy life together. When Ona’s father
dies, Jonas, Ona’s brother, suggests that the family
move to America because his friend Jokubas Szedvi-
las is a successful delicatessen owner in Chicago. In
addition to Ona, Jurgis, and Jonas, Ona’s stepmother
Elzbieta and her six children, Jurgis’s father Antanas,
and Ona’s cousin Marija Berczynskas immigrate to
America as well.
Among the themes Upton Sinclair (1878–1968)
explores are the American dream, work, and ill-
ness. The Rudkus family immigrates to America
for a more prosperous life, but the promise of the
American dream in The Jungle is presented as a ploy
used by the meatpacking industry to lure healthy
workers to Packingtown, Sinclair’s representation of
Chicago’s stockyards. In Packingtown, workers lose
their well-being because of poor working and living
conditions. Ultimately, most of the Rudkus family
is destroyed by the dehumanizing conditions bred
of American capitalism. An active socialist, Sinclair
offers socialism as a panacea for the workers’ plight,
and the last section of the novel focuses on Jurgis’s
involvement in the socialist movement.
Donna Kessler-EngThe amerIcan dream in The Jungle
Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle tells the story of Jurgis
Rudkus and his family’s immigration experience.
The main characters immigrate in search of the
American dream: material wealth, social mobility,
education, and individual freedoms. The ten-
sions that arise when the novel’s characters try to
negotiate between the values of their homeland and
those of their new country are apparent through-
out the novel. Lithuanian traditions such as the
wedding feast are carried out in America at huge
monetary, emotional, physical, and mental expense.
The American dream as presented in The Jungle is as
false as the prettily painted homes on the outskirts
of Packingtown that are sold to immigrants at phe-
nomenal expense.
Central to the novel is the story of Jurgis Rudkus
and Ona Lukoszaite. When the couple first meet at
a horse fair in Lithuania, Jurgis is in his early 20s
and Ona is 15. They fall in love. They want to have
children, a home, and financial security. They want
to provide their children with the benefits of Ameri-
can education and liberties. They want to be able to
live comfortably and to enjoy life.
After finding work in Packingtown, the family
purchases a home for $1,500. A Lithuanian neigh-
bor tells the family that the house was not new but
15 years old. Waves of immigrants—first Germans,
then Bohemians, Poles, Lithuanians, and Slovaks—
purchase these homes, but they are unable to keep
up with their payments. Like those before them, the
Rudkus family eventually loses its home when the
family can no longer pay the mortgage.
After the family purchases their house, Teta
Elzbieta and Antanas encourage Ona and Jurgis to
have a traditional Lithuanian wedding. They fear
that the “journey to a new country might somehow
undermine the old home virtues of their children.”
The wedding, or veselija, includes a feast, music, and
dancing. The acziavimas, a native dance, takes place
at the end of the party. Male guests pay a fee of their