The Jungle

by Carroll R Norden

Describes the characteristics and location of different types of jungles and the people, plants, and animals that inhabit them.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0839300786
• ISBN13: 9780839300786
• Release Date: January 1978
• Publisher: Steck-Vaughn
• Length: 48 Pages
• Age Range: 5 to 8 years
• Grade Range: Kindergarten to Grade 3

Customer Reviews

A Great History Fiction

Upton Sinclair's the Jungle is a distressing and touching story of the immigrant life in America during the early years of this century. Jurgis, Ona, and their families came to America from Lithuania to live a better life. After some time, reality set it. Their faith in America remained though. America was not what they had expected, especially once Ona and Jurgis were married. There was a constant pressure to work, but no matter where they turned they were poverty-stricken. Jurgis insisted Ona not work, but their financial situation demanded her to. This historically accurate book displays and reveals the horrific factory work and the workers suffering. Jurgis job descriptions were unbelievable. He was asked to stay after one day from work to butcher pregnant cows and cows that had gone down or ones that were sick and had boils all over them. Their meat was then mixed with all the uncontaminated meat. Jurgis then realized how the packers operated. They sold this spoiled, contaminated, or adulterated meat without thinking twice. The workers were exposed to horrible diseases, had to work harsh working condition, were not paid for days off. The employers did not care because if they quit or would not do the work, there were plenty of people who would do the work and needed a job. Throughout the novel, it seems no matter where the family turns they cannot get ahead. After Antanas, wife Ona, and his two sons die, and Jurgis is forced to give up the house, he enters crime with a friend he met in jail. Jurgis found out quickly just how corrupt Chicago and city government was.

Unrelenting exposé of the capitalist meatgrinder

Upton Sinclair unmasks turn of the century capitalist America in all its calculated savagery. The novel delivers a scathing general picture of the state of working conditions across the U.S., but it is best known for the mercilessly graphic descriptions of the slaughterhouses and packing houses of Chicago. The horrific and unsalubrious treatment of animals and meat is easily matched by the brutal treatment of workers, and the slaughterhouse becomes a larger metaphor representing the inhumane functioning of capitalism as a whole.Beyond the horrors of the factory floors, the narrative is also used very effectively to illustrate the complexities of graft, suppression of worker solidarity, media manipulation, duplicitous mass-marketing, etc., and it is a picture that remains highly relevant in today's world. True, the machinery of exploitation is more refined these days, and outright brutality, at least in North America, has been reduced. The fundamentals, however, are all depressingly familiar in spite of the passage of one hundred years.The story itself is ostensibly a 'bildungsroman' which follows the experiences of Lithuanian immigrant Jurgis Rudkus from his arrival in the U.S., to the horrific experiences he and his family suffer at the hands of the meat-packing industry, to his eventual conversion to Socialism. The bulk of the book traces the erosion of the community values which Jurgis brought over from the continent and their replacement with the dog-eat-dog mentality of individualist America. Jurgis eventually learns the ropes, but in the process, he is transformed into an unscrupulous monster consumed by self-interest. But at the very end of the book, even as he faces total financial and emotional ruin, an inspirational speech opens his eyes to an alternative vision of hope: that of International Socialism.This latter part of the story - which takes up the last 40 pages or so of the 400-page book - is much weaker than the rest. It is not because of any inherent weakness in the ideas, but rather it is the way Sinclair seems to have tired of bringing them alive with a credible narrative. Thus, for example, the emotional implications of Jurgis's epiphany are explored only very superficially (as opposed to the relatively thorough treatment given to the disasters which befall him earlier), and this sudden change of focus leaves his transformation looking somewhat contrived.Nevertheless, if the last 40 pages are a disappointment in literary terms, the previous 350 are absolutely outstanding. Five stars are well-deserved, even if the fifth is slightly tarnished....

How much has really changed?

Excellent book that tells the story of Jurgis, a Lithuanian immigrant who finds himself stuck in the Chicago stockyards. It traces his life in America, telling about all the horridness in the meat packing industry, which prompted the Food and Drug Act shortly after the book was written. It's a true account of what went on in the early 1900's, told in a fictional sort of way. It then proceeds through different manners of living at the bottom of society (i.e., theft, prostitution, political graft, etc.). The last few chapters, though, are mainly Sinclair preaching and raving about the benefits of socialism, which I think ends the story of Jurgis earlier than it needed to be. However, this book was written for the purpose of change during that time, and it probably did help considerably. However, if you also read "Fast Food Nation," which I highly reccommend, you have to wonder, really, how much has really changed? The faces may be different, but is the public not still led to believe by the government and the packing industry that all is fine and dandy with what we eat? Ugh, read both books... they'll scare you.

"Hot Dogs for Everyone?" Let's review some basic US history!

That reviewer a few reviews down said this book was stupid...Mr. N. obviously still thinks this book is complete fiction and has probably never had a United States history lesson in his comfortable life. Does he know this book is almost 100 years old? Now pay attention, Mr.! This book has more truth in it regarding the history of the working and living conditions for the immigrants; Jurgis's fictional family is a template, their experiences were commplace and can be surperimposed over many immigrant families of that time. Capitalism was brutal at the turn of the century, bosses' compassion for the workers was considered ludicrous and wasteful. The workers were wage slaves since the industry paid them as much as the lowest bidder/worker would take, that's why it was a life or death struggle against poverty and starvation everyday of their lives, SO IS THAT STUPID? Is Mr. N. so silly that he doesn't believe that those who were injured on the job (the bosses set a maddening pace to increase productivity around dangerous equipment at the workers expense) would be replaced within minutes by a substitute clamouring outside for that bloody, dangerous job that paid pennies per hour because he was about to starve or loose his home - if he even had one? Mr. N lives in an excruciatingly small and cloudy bubble, he obviously has no concern for the abuses they suffered, [was it too long ago for him to care?] these people really existed, Ding-dong! Read Jacob Riis' book "HOW THE OTHER HALF LIVED" to see what their living conditions were like, but after reading The Jungle, these lost souls may have too exhaused from their working day to see exactly where they were living, they may have felt lucky enough to collapse on a piece of rat-free floor, but lots were not so lucky. This was NOT A STUPID STORY, it was a true representation of what it was like to come to this country looking for freedom and comfort, while being taken for everything they had. And the last part of the book's focus is Socialism, but Mr. N doesn't know that that was one of the only solutions presented to the world to fix the plight of the working class. Individual tenement worker's contributions were barely enough to reach the masses, so here was the another solution. We really screwed these people, 'we' meaning the white middle class. These people have died in vain unless we recognize their anguish. Equate it to 100 years from now someone making fun of the victims of the World Trade Center, that would be insensitive and just plain STUPID. Each time I read Mr. N's review I get the chills, I had higher hopes for contemporary intellect, I'm just hoping that perhaps Mr. N is one of a kind and just needs a history refresher and who really didn't know what he was talking about.

Superb book (even if you were assigned to read it).

I'm the type of guy that can't stand many literary classics. I'm sorry, but I read a book for entertainment, not for metephors, meaning or symbolism. This is why it seems strange that I highly recommend this book.This book chronicles the life of immigrants from Lithuania who settle in Chicago in hopes of obtaining the American Dream. The way Sinclair describes the hardships of this family, it almost feels like you're the one who's suffering. Though depressing, the amount of detail engulfs the reader.Though the book is famous for exposing the meat packing industry's unsanitary conditions, it really is just a minor part of this book. The worker's rights, the racism, the corruption, and the poverty is what this book is all about. Though I'm a firm believer of Adam Smith and his invisible hand, half way through the book, I was searching for the local Socialist recruiter. Well, not really, but it will open anyone's mind.Except for the end, where it was just pure Socialist propoganda, this book is fantastic.