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choosing for dancing with the bride, a tradition that
provides a nest egg for the couple. But in America,
people eat, dance, and drink without offering mon-
etary gifts. Jurgis and Ona end up being a little more
than $100 in debt after the wedding. Jurgis just says,
“I will work harder,” but hereafter, he realizes that
in America, a capitalist society, every individual is
out for himself, and it is foolish and pointless to be
generous to others.
Now married homeowners, Ona and Jurgis start
a family of their own when Ona gives birth to their
son, Antanas, but the family cannot afford to pay for
their living expenses. As they become ill and worn
down by their daily lives, Ona and Jurgis’s relation-
ship is strained because of their struggle to survive.
Ona and Jurgis’s shared dreams die when Ona is
seduced at her job by a man named Connor. Ona’s
supervisor, Miss Henderson, runs a brothel and she
routinely lures her workers into lives of prostitution.
Jurgis finds out about Ona’s affair and ends up in jail
for attacking Connor. On the day Jurgis gets out of
jail, Ona is in labor; she dies at the age of 18 after
giving birth to her second child, who is stillborn.
Ona and Jurgis’s first child, little Antanas, dies at
age three when he drowns in the deep stream of
sewage flowing outside their home. At this point in
the novel, Jurgis’s quest for the American dream of
family, home, prosperity, and happiness is over.
After the death of his son, Jurgis leaves Pack-
ingtown and becomes a hobo, regaining his health
while traveling the countryside. His experiences
working for the meatpackers and being victimized
by the corrupt political system have changed him.
He turns to crime with Jack Duane, a man he met
in prison. He later becomes involved in politics,
working for Mike Scully and the corrupt Demo-
cratic political machine, which Jurgis sees as a more
developed form of crime. He becomes wealthy,
only to lose his money when he beats up Connor
once more on a chance meeting. Jurgis posts bail
and skips town for a while. When Jurgis returns to
Packingtown, he becomes involved in the socialist
movement and works at a hotel owned by Tommy
Hinds, a socialist leader.
Jurgis’s American dream is replaced by a socialist
vision for a better world. Upton Sinclair presents
socialism as the only means through which the
American dream’s promises of contentment and
happiness may be realized.
Donna Kessler-EngILLneSS in The Jungle
Illness is one of the prevalent themes in Upton
Sinclair’s The Jungle. When Jurgis Rudkus and his
family were still in Lithuania, they were living in
the healthful environment of the Brevolicz Impe-
rial Forest. The family ate fresh produce and meat,
bathed regularly, drank clean water, and lived in a
solidly built home that kept them warm. In Lithua-
nia, the Rudkus family may have been poor, but they
were healthy and blessed with wholesome working
and living conditions. When they immigrate to
America, however, they are introduced to the toxic
environment of the Chicago stockyards, where ill-
ness is commonplace. Tuberculosis, work-related
illnesses, disease, maternal debility, and mortality are
all parts of everyday life in Packingtown. The lack
of wholesome food, clean water supplies, proper
housing, sanitation, and heat contribute to illness in
the novel. Workers are often victims to alcoholism,
prostitution, drug addiction, and crime. In exchange
for the healthy lifestyle they had enjoyed in the
natural environs of Lithuania, the Rudkus family
is destroyed by the unhealthy living and working
conditions of Packingtown.
When Jurgis and his family enter Packingtown
for the first time, they are startled by the toxic
environment of the stockyards. The landscape is
“hideous and bare,” and there is an “endless vista of
ugly and dirty little buildings.” The family’s living
conditions eventually cause illness. They first live in
a tenement where anywhere from six to 14 boarders
live in one room, and they sleep on vermin-infested
mattresses. When the family purchases a four-room
home, it is not insulated and cannot be properly
heated. There is “no sewer,” and a cesspool flows
beneath the family’s home. There is not enough
heat or water for the family to bathe. The water
supply for the area’s inhabitants is a “filthy creek”
and a water hole behind the local garbage dump
where people often sift for food. The family’s diet
consists of contaminated meat, pale blue milk made
of formaldehyde, and doctored groceries. Three-
foot deep rivers of effluvia run beneath the wooden