FREE ESSAY ON MINORITY GROUPS IN THE JUNGLE

MINORITY GROUPS IN THE JUNGLE

Upton Sinclair, one of America's most important and influential radical voices, wrote The
Jungle, a combination of reportorial expose and a salvation through Socialism story. The
book has harrowing descriptions of tainted meat, a tainted environment, and the
degradation of human labor. The purpose of The Jungle was to make laws come into effect
to make meatpacking and food safer, but also educating voters depending on their
necessities. However, most of all Sinclair's conversion plot offered a socialist
alternative to Packingtown's brutal inequalities that comes along with the images of
"workingmen of America". These were not only an oppressed class, but they were also being
"used up" by the trusts and in disadvantage in the capitalist jungle. Sinclair was trying
to show that the cure to all the problems showed in the book would be a new environment,
based on a socialist economy, where cooperation would replace competition.
The clues of how the conditions of the minority groups were hideous, start appearing when
1 week after Ona had given birth to her first baby she had to return to work. The lack of
rest leads to "womb trouble" and Sinclair shows us that this is not an isolated case.
"The great majority of women in Packingtown suffered in the same way, and from the same
cause."(Page 108) Good medical treatment was costly and it seemed that "there never
seemed to be an end to the things they had to buy." (Page 100) At one time it was
insurance on the house, then taxes, water fees, etc. All the money that had gotten for
the month seemed to run out in no time. There was never an opportunity to save money.
Everything they received was always spent. Without savings there was a certain difficulty
to find good medical care. The medical care available for the poor was inadequate, so Ona
and others with "womb trouble" often relied in patent medicines of dubious value. One can
see how inadequate the conditions are when we first meet Madame Haupt. "She was a
Dutchwoman, enormously fat - when she walked she rolled like a small boat on the ocean .
. . she wore a filthy blue wrapper, and her teeth were black." (Page 182) She was their
only hope at the price they could afford, $1.25. After 6 weeks digging tunnels, Jurgis
has another job injury and ends up in the hospital. After Christmas he is discharged from
the hospital even though he was in terrible condition still. At this point Sinclair
compares the heartless industries with this public institution. It does not stop here
there is more. Child labor was something very typical. Children such as Stanislovas were
forced to lie about their age so they would be able to work. At the time Stanislovas was
14 and had to say he was 16. His sister, Kotrina suffered the fate of working-class
females. She was 13 and already had o take care of the household. Vilimas and Nikalojas
were pulled out of school and began selling newspapers. Jurgis father was already old and
because of his age and his weakness he could not find a job. Industries said he could not
handle the number of forced labor hours. Later he found a job. There he would deal with
deadly chemicals.
Industrial capitalism is an efficient "slaughtering machine" that sacrifices its workers.
Businesses take no responsibility for their workers. They "use up" the young and strong
and discard the old and weak. "They had got the best out of them - they had worn them
out, with their speeding up and their carelessness, and now they would throw them away."
(Page 124) Their workers are exposed to awful occupational diseases, but the industries
do not even care about protecting their employees. Workers felt the need to begin
drinking to ease the pain of the exaggerated amount of energy and force exerted into
their jobs. We could even compare the situation of these workers with slaves. However, in
this case both the master and its slave had the same color of skin. Masters did not whip
his workers, but he would make them work in absurd speeds, which in this case could be
considered the same thing. It's a trap for Jurgis and other "workingmen" because the need
to support a family makes them vulnerable to all sorts of exploitation. Sinclair
throughout the whole novel tries to point out that Jurgis and other "workingmen" have to
begin realizing that they are on the bottom. They can't get disillusioned with the idea
that if they work hard they will get there. It happened with Jurgis, when he allowed
himself the luxury of making plans and dreams he lost his job at the harvester. They have
to face reality. "People who worked with their hands were a class apart, and were made to
feel it." (Page 101) The orator that gives the Socialism speech that inspires Jurgis
compares the horrors of war to the sufferings and death that result from the struggle
between the workers and their masters. 
Jurgis gets a job digging tunnels for a subway freight line, which is part of a scheme
made by the Chicago merchants to break the union of teamsters who haul goods above the
ground. They brought councilmen who will approve the plan. This is a perfect example of
how politicians and businessmen conspire to keep workers powerless and poor. Also, those
workers in their struggle for survival often do things against their best interests.
Jurgis starts out by earning 17 ? cents per hour, in other words $1.50 for a 12-hour day.
However, Ostrinski explains later that workers have only their labor to sell, and jobs go
to the lowest candidates. So workers are forced by the system to accept wages that they
can barely live on. Workers can not have the luxury of choosing what jobs they want and
how much they want to earn. That is why they are obliged to accept whatever is offered
for them. This is the so called competitive wage system. A system where workers compete
to sell their labor. The same thing happened to women. However, in their cases they can
sell their bodies, which is practically all they have left. "When people are starving and
they have anything with a price, they ought to sell it." (Page 291) 
The workers were an oppressed class that was being "used up" by the trusts and were in
disadvantage in the capitalist jungle. One by one the immigrants went through all the
troubles the lower class of Chicago had. It was even said that during that time 1 out of
7 people in America was an immigrant. Under capitalism, " . . . all the fair and noble
impulses of humanity . . . are shackled and bound in the service of organized and
predatory greed! . . . women are driven by hunger to sell their bodies to live . . .
Homeless and wretched men willing to work and begging for a chance are starving . . .
Children are wearing out their strength and blasting their lives in the effort to earn
their bread! . . . Mothers struggle to earn enough to feed their little ones! Old people
cast off and helpless await death . . . living off these are the masters of these slaves,
who own their toil . . . They live in palaces, they riot in luxury and extravagance . . .
the whole of society is in their grip, the whole labor of the world lies at their mercy."
(Page 304)
Bibliography
The Jungle, Upton Sinclair