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1-Page Summary of The Jungle
Jurgis and Ona, a Lithuanian couple who have just immigrated to Chicago, hold their wedding feast at the bar in Packingtown. They had come to America in search of a better life for themselves and their families. However, they discover that it is hard to find work here because Packingtown was known as an area where immigrants from Lithuania settled. It’s also dirty and dangerous; therefore, many people are poor and can’t afford the money needed for a wedding feast. Jurgis believes that he will be able to make more money by working harder than those around him so that he can pay off his debts when they get married.
Jurgis, a young man with energy and drive, quickly finds work in the meatpacking industry. He is joined by Marija Berczynskas, Ona’s cousin, as well as Jonas who is Ona’s stepmother’s brother. They all buy into a house swindle that turns out to be very expensive for them. As living expenses increase they are forced to look for jobs but find them hard to come by because of unsafe working conditions and corruption in the immigrant community. Jurgis’ father Dede Antanas also joins him at his job after he agrees to give some of his wages away in order to get it but dies shortly after from overwork
Winter is the most dangerous season in Packingtown, and it’s difficult to work without heat. Jurgis works at an unheated slaughterhouse, where he risks his life every day by simply going to work. Marija has a boyfriend named Tamoszius who plays the violin for her and asks her to marry him but they can’t afford a wedding because they never have enough money. Marija loses her factory job when she complains about being cheated out of pay. Ona is pregnant with another child, and now that she has one baby already, things are more difficult for her at work than before—her boss runs a prostitution ring out of the factory and forces girls like Ona into prostitution as well. She gives birth to a healthy boy whom they name Antanas after Jurgis’ father (who died) but soon returns to work only seven days later despite having just given birth!
In Packingtown, any mishap can bring ruin upon a family. Jurgis sprains his ankle and is forced to spend nearly three months in bed, unable to work. Even though poor working conditions caused the accident, the factory simply cuts off Jurgis’s pay while he recuperates. Unable to tolerate the misery, Jonas abandons the family, disappearing without a word. Kristoforas dies of food poisoning due to poor sanitation in their home; Teta Elzbieta blames herself for not buying better food for her children and becomes depressed. Jurgis recovers from his injury but finds that he no longer has his old job at Brown’s because there are so many people looking for jobs now that it’s springtime (the winter season had been hard on them). He spends weeks searching for work until finally finding one at another meatpacking plant where they make fertilizer out of dead animals’ remains—it is by far the worst place in all of Packingtown because of its stench and unsanitary conditions. His new boss gives him alcohol regularly as part of his wages since it numbs pain and makes workers more productive; this leads him down a path towards alcoholism.
Ona is pregnant again. One night, she doesn’t return home from work and Jurgis discovers that her boss forced her to sleep with him. He attacks the boss and gets arrested. After a trial, he’s sentenced to a month in prison where he meets Jack Duane, who tells him his family has been evicted from their house and moved into the boardinghouse they first stayed at when they arrived in Chicago. When Jurgis returns home, Ona screams because she’s giving birth too early; both mother and child die as a result of the strain on her body caused by trying to give birth so soon after getting pregnant again. In agony over losing his wife and unborn child at once, Jurgis disappears on an alcohol-fueled binge for several days before finally returning home late one night only to find that Marija has taken over caring for his children while Dede hides out at another apartment nearby with Antanas because she fears being deported back to Lithuania if caught living illegally in America again.
