The Jungle (novel)

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The Jungle (1906) is a novel by Upton Sinclair that describes the life of a family of Lithuanian immigrants working in Chicago's Union Stock Yards at the end of the 19th century. The novel depicts in harsh tones, poverty, the complete absence of social security, the scandalous living and working conditions, the lack of hygiene, and generally the utter hopelessness prevalent among the have-nots, which is contrasted with the deeply-rooted corruption on the part of the haves.

Contents 1 Chapter 1 2 Chapter 27 3 Chapter 28 4 Chapter 29 5 Chapter 31 6 External links

[edit] Chapter 1

• He is a very inspired man. His violin is out of tune, and there is no rosin on his bow, but he is a very inspired man.
• (For the family to give up their traditions) would mean not merely to be defeated, but to accept defeat--and the difference between these two things is what keeps the world going.

[edit] Chapter 27

• 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.

[edit] Chapter 28

• There is no wilderness where I can hide from these things, there is no haven where I can escape them; though I travel to the ends of the earth, I find the same accursed system - I find that all the fair and noble impulses of humanity, the dreams of poets and the agonies of martyrs, are shackled and bound in the service of organized and predatory Greed!

• "What," asks the prophet, "is the murder of them that kill the body, to the murder of them that kill the soul?"

[edit] Chapter 29

• It was the incarnation of blind insensenate Greed. It was a monster devouring with a thousand mouths, trampling with a thousand hoofs: it was the Great Butcher -- it was the spirit of Capitalism made flesh.

[edit] Chapter 31

• "So spoke an orator upon the platform; and two thousand pairs of eyes were fixed upon

him, and two thousand voices were cheering his every sentence. The orator had been the head of the city's relief bureau in the stockyards, until the sight of misery and corruption had made him sick. He was young, hungry-looking, full of fire; and as he swung his long arms and beat up the crowd, to Jurgis he seemed the very spirit of the revolution. "Organize! Organize! Organize!" that was his cry. He was afraid of this tremendous vote, which his party had not expected, and which it had not earned. "These men are not Socialists!" he cried. "This election will pass, and the excitement will die, and people will forget about it; and if you forget about it, too, if you sink back and rest upon your oars, we shall lose this vote that we have polled today, and our enemies will laugh us to scorn! It rests with you to take your resolution now, in the flush of victory, to find these men who have voted for us, and bring them to our meetings, and organize them and bind them to us! We shall not find all our campaigns as easy as this one. Everywhere in the country tonight the old party politicians are studying this vote, and setting their sails by it; and nowhere will they be quicker or more cunning than here in our own city. Fifty thousand Socialist votes in Chicago means a municipal-ownership Democracy in the spring! And then they will fool the voters once more, and all the powers of plunder and corruption will be swept into office again! But whatever they may do when they get in, there is one thing they will not do, and that will be the thing for which they were elected! They will not give the people of our city municipal ownership,they will not mean to do it, they will not try to do it; all that they will do is give our party in Chicago the greatest opportunity that has ever come to Socialism in America! We shall have the sham reformers selfstultified and self-convicted; we shall have the radical Democracy left without a lie with which to cover its nakedness! And then will begin the rush that will never be checked, the tide that will never turn till it has reached its flood that will be irresistible, overwhelming the rallying of the outraged workingmen of Chicago to our standard! And we shall organize them, we shall drill them, we shall marshal them for the victory! We shall bear down the opposition, we shall sweep it before us and Chicago will be ours! Chicago will be ours! CHICAGO WILL BE OURS!"

[edit] External links