The Jungle is a novel about Jurgis Rudkus, a Lithuanian immigrant who comes to Chicago with his family, hoping for a better life. He finds work in the stockyards and packing houses, but the family soon meets low pay, dangerous conditions, debt and the greed of those who profit from newcomers. Sinclair follows their struggles in close, unsparing detail and turns toward socialism as a possible answer. The book caused a public outcry over the meat industry and remains a landmark of American protest fiction.
Quotes
The veselija is a compact, a compact not expressed, but therefore only the more binding upon all.
They say that the best dog will turn cross if he be kept chained all the time, and it was the same with the man; he had not a thing to do all day but lie and curse his fate, and the time came when he wanted to curse everything.
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.
What," asks the prophet, "is the murder of them that kill the body, to the murder of them that kill the soul?
Chapter XXVIII · Project Gutenberg #140 (opens in a new tab)