Prompt 3
At the end of this chapter, things are finally looking good for Jurgis. He finally found a job, which was probably very exciting for him, because he likes to help his family and it gives him a sense of self-pride when he can do that.
This job is so much better than any of the other jobs he's had. At the one he has currently, all he does is stand in a line with other people and turn bolts. That sounds pretty boring, but the working conditions of the factory itself aren't terrible like the Durham's slaughterhouse and the Packingtown. Those two jobs were just completely awful- and smelly... However, Jurgis' happiness ceases when he's leaving work and finds out that his department in the factory was going to be closed until further notice. UGHH
Prompt 1
In this Chapter, Ona dies trying to give birth to her and Jurgis' child. Jurgis found some scraggy old midwife to come and help her, and thought that Ona would be okay. But after about a night once Jurgis had come back from the saloon, the midwife told him that it was too late to help Ona and that she should've gotten help sooner.
It was very unfortunate that she died, but there wasn't much that could be done for her. Jurgis (at the time) was in jail, so they didn't have much money at all coming in, which would've made it hard to hire a doctor to help Ona before things took such a bad turn. And with Marija's cut hand, she wasn't any help either; so there wasn't a way for them to help Ona. By the time they got some help, it was too late.
Prompt 1
When Jurgis was finally released from jail, it was very tough for him. He was probably expecting it to go a lot better than it did. As he got out, he asked a boy for directions who decided to be a little brat and guide him away from it... And once Jurgis finally got back to his house, he discovered that his family must have been kicked out since they were gone and there was an Irish family moved in there instead. So, he eventually found them, and they were staying with Aniele.
Jurgis' arrival didn't seem to make his family too excited, really. They explained to him how they had been kicked out of the house since they had no money, and had been begging to stay alive. And then women from the house they were staying in gave Jurgis money to help him get a job. It was very rough for him to come back.
Prompt 1
This chapter describes what Jurgis experiences while in prison, and his hearing about the case. Within the first couple of days, Jurgis makes friends, and makes a realization. "Swindlers and thieves of pennies and dimes, and they had been trapped and put out of the way by swindlers and thieves of millions of dollars".
These men who were in jail were mainly foreigners, doing whatever they could (swindling, stealing) to keep them and their families alive, since it was so tough to make good money as an immigrant. And then there were the people who were American, ran companies, owned factories, had plenty of money, and did those same things, usually even worse. What makes this so terrible is that the Americans could get away with it because they could practically get any foreigner in trouble, even if they were doing the same thing.
Prompt 1
As we all know by now, Jurgis sort of beat the living daylights out of Connor. At the moment he did it, he felt a big amount of gratification, only to be shortly replaced by regret and fear; not just for himself, but his family too. When he went to beat up on Connor, he was too caught up in the moment to really think out the situation and what would happen.
Once he gets arrested, he realizes that his family is going to be in more misery and suffering due to his absence and not being able to help provide for them. In the book, it stated, "A maddening procession of thoughts that lashed him like whips upon his naked back". For Jurgis, this probably applies to him in the fact that he's thinking about how much more terrible his family must be doing, and it's all his fault because of a hasty action. He cares about his family, and knowing that they're going to be struggling so much just kills him (metaphorically, of course). At one point in the chapter, he realizes that for Christmas, he'll be in prison with food, water, and a warm place to be; whereas his family, who hasn't done anything wrong, has very little compared to him, which made him very upset.
Prompt 1
In the beginning of this chapter, we find out that Ona hasn't been coming home at a normal time, and has been very on the edge when Jurgis asks her about where she's been. After she doesn't come home yet again, Jurgis goes to the house that Ona claimed to stay at, to find she wasn't there. He then went home to find Ona there, finally.
Jurgis questioned her about where she was and what she was doing, but at first she just wouldn't tell him (she was kind of an emotional mess at that point). But Ona finally went on to explain that Connor had raped her and threatened her. "He knew your boss- he knew Marija's. He would hound us to death, he said- then he said if I would- if I- we would all of us be sure of work- always. Then one day he caught hold of me..." Ona didn't want the members of her family to lose their jobs, so she went along with it, until Connor said he was getting tired of her.
After Ona told Jurgis that, he ran out the door to find Connor. When he found him, he then jumped him, bludgeoning him, until men grabbed him to get him off of Connor; but right before he was pulled off, he bit a piece of his [Connor's] cheek off... Then he was taken into the custody of the police. It's so hard to believe that foreign workers were so taken advantage of, because the people who were doing it knew that they could pretty much do whatever they wanted to do to them.
Prompt 1
This chapter goes in to detail, explaining what kind of things that were being made in the factory that Jurgis was working in, and being sold. The items being produced were made of disgusting things, and were still being sold and consumed by people. "There would be meat tumbled out on the floor, in the dirt and sawdust, where the workers had tramped and spit uncounted billions of consumption germs... But a man could run his hand over these piled of meat and sweep off handfuls of the dried dung of rats. These rats were nuisances, and the packers would put poisoned bread out for them, they would die, and then rats, bread, and meat would go into the hoppers together..."
That was just one example of the kinds of things they put into their "Grade-1", "meat" products. While what the companies were making was practically poisoned meat, it was pretty smart, because it brought them in more money which is all that they wanted. It's terrible to think that this stuff was actually sold and people ate it...
Prompt 1
The job described was the fertilizer works of Durham's. From how it's described in the book, this job sounds like it was absolutely disgusting. Not just because of the conditions of the place, but the things that they were producing. "...and in suffocating cellars where the daylight never came you might see men and women and children bending over whirling machines and sawing bits of bone... breathing their lungs full of the fine dust, and doomed to die, every one of them... Here they made the blood into albumen, and made other foul-smelling things into things still more foul-smelling'.
Working there would be absolutely awful. What they were producing was absolutely disgusting, and shouldn't have been able to be sold. Not only that, but in the process of making the product, the poor people were inhaling bone dust while working away in dark cellars, while only being paid a small amount of money. I can't imagine how Jurgis and Teta Elzbieta must've felt.
Prompt 1
In Chapter 12, Jonas was the first to disappear and abandon the family. Financially, this took a big toll on Jurgis and the others. The amount of money they were making went down by about one third, making things much harder than they already were. And their food demand was only down by one eleventh, so the amount of money they needed didn't change very much. With that, two children had to stop going to school since they couldn't afford it anymore.
Two of the children (Vilimas and Nikalojus) were then forced by the family to find work, and ended up delivering newspapers. This whole situation took a very large, psychological impact on the family. Before it happened, most of them were already pretty hopeless, so this really just kind of took away most of the hope that they had.
