Analyzing The American Dream In Upton Sinclair's 'The Jungle'

In the face of perseverance many would falter and give up, but there are those who, despite their misfortune will find a way to continue on living. The book, The Jungle talks about the difficulties that our main protagonist Jurgis goes through in his search of the American dream.The American dream for many immigrants is to search for better pay and living conditions, but it was not always this way. In the past it was hell because of capitalism and big corporations that controlled the lives of people. Throughout the book we see how difficult the life was for Jurgis and what he went through to get by. Through it all he does not give up and as the reader we see how hopeless his actions were. We see how insignificant working hard will get him a better life. Sinclair depicts that the poor will always remain poor and the rich will always remain rich with power.
Upton Sinclair describes the immigrants ' lives as a form of modern slavery because of the working conditions of jobs and the corrupt companies.In the past, the slave would get abused by the white man because he was in power and had total control of the slave 's life.Some people in the novel, including Jurgis were cheated out of money and their hard work. Nobody was allowed to complain about the working conditions because if anyone did then they would get fired. Fired was a huge deal since it meant other companies would not hire you anymore.At the time big businesses monoplosied and exploited the fear of being jobless as a mean to pay cheaply to the employers. Many people were forced into laborious jobs that had poor working conditions and getting injured was a common occurrence in the workplace. In multiple occasions our protagonist was fired and ended up the hospital because of his job while big corporations did nothing to help. In the beginning Jurgis and his wife Ona, who were both immigrants that move to Chicago. Were getting married in a bar in hopes of a better life in the promising land . Unfortunately this better life turns out to be nothing more than an empty dream. Their first days there they get scammed by the bar and are forced to pay a huge tab because of uninvited guests.Jurgis tells his wife that anything is possible with hard work and they learn quickly the rules of the game. If they had said anything to the people in the bar, then they would be up against politicians. We also learn that keeping a job was not so easy because being late for a minute meant your pay would be reduced.Being late twenty minutes meant the loss of your job. Jurgis starts to work in the meat plant where he sees horrible things.He sees the animals kept in cages and companies cared very little about sanitary conditions. …show more content…
With the little money that his family made ,they decided to buy a house which turned out to be a regretful decision. They meet a real estate agent in a nice suit that tells him all the details. To their knowledge they did not trust the man so they got a lawyer to inspect the validity of the salesman. Little did they know that the lawyer was working together with the salesman .They then agree to buy the house which resulted in getting cheated out because it slowly starts to take away all the money of the family.Forced to live at the mercy of his company and pray for a better day.The company makes the house only a rental that way people who rent are evicted quickly and are scammed of their money. Even though finding out he had been swindled ,Jurgis stays optimistic even with the weight of his family hating their job, but he only saw their hate as a form of laziness.Jurgis then gets offered a deal on a job for a third of his pay, but he was not sure about it. After talking with his coworker he comes to understand that corruption exists everywhere in Packingtown.We hear from the neighbors that the previous owners of the house were never able to pay it off. The past four owners could