The+Jungle

by Upton Sinclair

Discussion Time: 4B, Thursday January 13, 10:55-12:25

Group Members Susannah D Dinah K Ethan A Max G Steve Str*



To Begin:
Introductions of book group members Did you like the book? Why or why not? Discussion facilitator: Susannah?

**Plot:**
- How does Jurgis' and Ona's ethnicity affect their experiences in America? - What do you think the opening scene (the wedding, celebration) symbolized? - By the end of the novel, Jurgis has turned into a drunken criminal, is this caused by his own faulty personality or his surroundings and life struggle? - Do you think Jurgis' situation was relatively common in the poor meat packing industries? - How do the two times Jurgis goes to prison affect his life? How are they different? - Why does Jurgis return to Chicago after his time living as a bum in the country? - How would the story have changed if Jurgis had not attacked Connor the first time?

**Setting:**
- What purpose does Chicago serve historically in the novel? Why was it necessary to set the novel there? - During the time period this novel takes place there were no inspections or sanitation laws for these meat packing companies. This book actually played a role in creating federal inspections of these plants. Do you think this was of Sinclair's motives for writing //The Jungle//?

**Characters:**
- Marija turns to prostitution to get along in Packingtown, are you sympathetic with her situation or critical of her choices?

- Is //The Jungle// critical of American capitalism? Is it critical of immigrants? - Is //The Jungle// just a tale of one man and his families struggle, or is it directly critical of the American dream? - Why does Sinclair refer to the workers as animals at some points? How does this connect to the title? - When Jurgis says, "I will work harder," will this really make a difference? Does he have this control over his work? - What is this book's relevance today?
 * Themes:**

- What is the symbolism of the title "The Jungle"? - Do you think this book is a promotion of socialism, as Jurgis becomes a socialist in the end of the novel?
 * Writing Style:**

"Ah, what agony was that, what despair, when the tomb of memory was rent open and the ghosts of his old life came forth to scourge him!" (244) "There is one kind of prison where the man is behind bars, and everything that he desires is outside; and there is another kind where the things are behind the bars, and the man is outside" (311). "The peculiar bitterness of all this was that Jurgis saw so plainly the meaning of it. In the beginning he had been fresh and strong, and he had gotten a job the first day; but now he was second-hand, a damaged article, so to speak, and they did not want him" (136). "They could tell the whole hateful story of it; set forth the inner soul of a city in which justice and honor, women's bodies and men's souls, were for sale in the market-place, and human beings writhed and fought and fell upon each other like wolves in a pit; in which lusts were raging firs, and men were fuel, and humanity was festering and stewing and wallowing in its own corruption" (183). "Jurgis could see all the truth now-could see himself, through the whole long course of events, the victim of ravenous vultures that had torn into his vitals and devoured him, meantime, jeering in his face" (196).
 * Significant Passages:**

Packingtown c. 1900 Strikers in 1904
 * Outside Resources:**

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