Mackendrick, Study Guide The Jungle, Eng.

11A

The Jungle, Upton Sinclair (Chaps. 15 thru 18) Chap. 15: Thanksgiving comes around, one night Ona doesnt come home after work. Jurgis goes to the factory she works at the next morning and waits for her. When she arrives she says that the storm the night before prevented her from coming home so she spent the night at a friends house. This happens again about a month later and Jurgis is not concerned. Later when he is at her friends house he discovers that she did not stay there the other night, nor had she ever stayed there. The people she works with know the truth but wont say anything about it to Jurgis. By coincidence, he sees her riding home on a street car and he follows her home, where he demands to know where she has been. Ona explains that she has been going to her foreladys (bosses) house. Slowly, he realizes what this means. He discovers that one of her bosses, Connor, has been taking her downtown, and by making threats against her family, forcing Ona to comply with his wishes. Jurgis leaves the house in a rage, and rushes over to the factory. There he finds Connor and attacks him trying to strangle him. It takes many men to pull Jurgis off of Connor, and he is taken to company police station to await a police patrol wagon. This is one of the few significant discussions between Jurgis and Ona that highlights the distance between them. Sinclair is showing how their old world ways, combined with the pressures of their hard lives stops them from growing closer as a couple. The scene is very melodramatic, but the reader feels Jurgis rage, as well as, Onas great fear of people that are bigger and stronger than her, even her own husband. Chap. 16: Jurgis is booked on charges of assault and battery at the police station. He begins to worry about the family and how this will affect them, but he is quietly satisfied about what he has done to Connor at the factory. He worries that they will lose the house, it is Christmas Eve and Jurgis hears the church bells and curses the terrible unfairness of the American system. The reader is made to sympathize with Jurgis as we see that the court does not. This leads us to question the capitalist system as a whole. Chap. 17: The next morning, Jurgis meets Jack Duane in jail. Duane takes the position that workers need wage a war against the corrupt society they are in, this appeals to Jurgis who is feeling rather rebellious lately. Jurgis trial is a farce, the corrupt judge takes Connors false testimony and sentences him to 30 days in prison. While in jail, Stanislovas visits Jurgis, he begs for money and tells him how the family is suffering without him. Chap. 18: Jurgis has to serve additional time in jail to cover the court costs. Then, when he finally gets home, he discovers their house has been painted and his family is gone! An Irishwoman tells him that she has bought the house, Grandmother Majauszkiene tells him that they went to the widow Juknienes home. When Jurgis gets there he finds the women huddled in a group in the kitchen. Ona attacks him screaming, Marija explains that her baby has come early and they have no midwife. They give him what little money they can get together, and tell him to go and find someone who can help. He fears for Onas life. This chapter shows how what they had all thought was theirs, was never really theirs at all.