Chapter 31

Prompt 1

      This chapter was primarily a bunch of socialists talking about socialism and getting all riled up. One man, Mr. Maynard, had two basic socialist "cut and dried programs for future civilizations'. These were pretty much two things he said that all Socialists should believe.

      One said that a socialist believes that "the common ownership and democratic management of the means of producing the necessities of life..." The second one he spoke about stated that a socialist also believes that "the means by which this is to be brought about is the class conscious political organization of wage-workers."

      For the people in Packingtown, it would affect them a lot. If their area revolved around Socialism, it would make everything less... Terrible, I think (this chapter was sort of hard to decipher). From what I gathered, it would control the flow of production, which would make all of the horrible, disgusting, jobs a little bit easier to do. 

Chapter 30

Prompt 1

      As Jurgis met Elzbieta again, she was pretty skeptical. But after they had talked for a while. she was convinced he was still sane. Since Jurgis was still without a job, we went wandering around the city again. He ran into a small hotel, so he went in to see if there were any job openings; so he went up to the proprietor, and there was a job opening as a porter. It paid $30/month plus board. 

      Jurgis' job wasn't only being a porter, however. He was also a speaker for socialism. His boss, Tommy Hinds, was very big on socialism. So he would strike up a political conversation with someone in the lobby, which, in turn, caused others to listen in on the conversation. It seems as if many people who came to the little hotel weren't really looking for a place to stay, but to come to the little 'rallies' in the hotel.

Chapter 29

Prompt 1

      As the book says, the butcher was "the spirit of Capitalism made flesh". The Butcher did things for the less fortunate that greatly affected those who were better off. "Bribery and corruption were its everyday methods... It stole billions of gallons of city water openly, it dictated to the courts the sentences of disorderly strikes..." The Great Butcher also then falsified government reports, violated rebate laws, and wiped out thousands of businesses every year.

      At one point it had made the price of cattle incredibly low, so the stock-raising industry was destroyed. Basically, the Great Butcher was doing not-so-good things that would benefit the less fortunate people.

Chapter 28

Prompt 1

      Most foreigners were taken advantage of from the moment they got to America. Close to all of them couldn't speak English, or spoke very little, so it was easy for them to be tricked. One example would be in the very beginning of the book when Jurgis and the family are tricked into staying in a very pricey hotel since they couldn't read anything.

      We learn this chapter, that Marijia and the others who work for the Madame were all being taken advantage of greatly. All of the girls were addicted to one thing or another, so the Madame would provide them with it, but for that they were all in her debt and had to work for her. That must've been horrible to go through, and what's even worse is that they couldn't really get out of that once they were in. Most of them were pretty young, yet their lives were practically wasted away.

Chapter 27

Prompt 1

      Jurgis fell down pretty hard in this chapter. He's begging around for a job, but can't seem to find one. The crowds of unemployed men were only getting bigger, so his chances weren't great. After a while he finally was hired, only to be fired soon after because he wasn't strong enough for the job.

     While Jurgis was on the streets begging, he ran into a woman he met five years ago, who appeared to be well off now; as she was dressed in very fine clothing. She didn't have money on her, but she told Jurgis where Marijia was living. So, Jurgis went off to find where she was. He wasn't in there long before the police raided the place because it was a brothel. 

      They got to talk for a moment before they were all taken to the police station, but I think Jurgis was very taken back by the whole situation. Stanislovas died, Marijia and Elzbieta couldn't keep jobs, and they were living off of Marijia's money from working at the brothel. Jurgis probably felt a pang of guilt knowing that they were doing this horrible stuff now, probably because he left and wasn't supporting them anymore.

Chapter 26

Prompt 1

      Chapter 26 shows us what Jurgis' life was like at the time. He had his job as a hog trimmer which was paying him good enough money, and he was getting along just fine. We learn that the unions and packers clash, causing a very big strike. Jurgis goes to Scully to see if he can get a different job, but got told to keep his job as a 'scab'. 

      Shortly after this, Jurgis is offered a job as the boss of the killing beds. He accepts it, since he was told he'll get higher wages and that the job will be there after the strike is over. As the chapter progresses, Jurgis sees Connor in Packingtown. Since Jurgis acts on impulse a lot, he attacked Connor again. When Jurgis is in jail, he calls Harper and finds out that Connor was one of Scully's favorites... Once his bail was paid, he was left with less than four dollars. It must've been really hard for him, considering he was just getting his life on track and getting stability, just to have it all thrown away by an impulse he got.

      

Chapter 25

Prompt 1
      In this chapter, Jurgis finally gets a stable flow of income coming in. His job isn't exactly- normal. It's not even legal. He's turned to a life of crime to make money and stay alive. Time and time again, Jurgis has tried to make money with normal jobs, but he didn't have any luck with them. I feel like him turning to this dangerous, illegal job was sort of a last resort. He had lost so much already and had tried so many times before, he probably wasn't concerned about the fact that the 'work' he was doing was, in fact, illegal.

      Near the end of the chapter, Jurgis gets an actual job, but it's more of a front that anything, I believe. It's just really sad that he turned to a life of crime to make money and survive.

Chapter 24

Prompt 1

     I think Jurgis was very confused by the young, rich man who was VERY drunk. After they had talked, the man (Freddie Duane) decided to take Jurgis to his house. This house was like a mansion; when Jurgis walked inside, he was very alarmed by all of the expensive things inside of it. All of his life he had never experienced that kind of luxury, so I imagine he must've felt a little bit jealous. Freddie ended up giving Jurgis $100 cash, which was shortly followed by the butler kicking Jurgis out. 

      When Jurgis arrived back in Chicago, he went to a saloon to have his $100 broken into smaller bills. So, the bartender said that if he bought a drink he would. Jurgis did that, but the bartender only gave him a small amount of change. This caused a bar-fight, which led to Jurgis being arrested... again.

      

Chapter 23

Prompt 1

      Once Jurgis gets back to Chicago, he starts walking around the city in search for a job. After about a month, he finally got a job digging tunnels underground for telephones. This job was going fairly well for Jurgis at first, but as one might imagine, it has some possible dangers to it. Premature explosions, falling rocks, and crushed supports are some of the things they had to look out for. Unfortunately, Jurgis became victim of an explosion which sent him to the hospital with a broken left arm.

      After getting out of the hospital, he very little money and a broken arm, so he couldn't work. This lead to him going around and begging for money while being unsuccessful most of the time. He says in this chapter at one point that he feels like a "wounded animal in the forest". Which really was true for him. He was a helpless, wounded, man barely scraping by and surviving.

Chapter 22

Prompt 1

      So, in this chapter, we see Jurgis abandon the rest of his family once Antanas dies because he drowned. He hops aboard a train car, and leaves for the countryside outside of Chicago. Once he starts wandering, he gets offered multiple jobs by various farmers, declining them all. He only wants a job that will provide him money all year; he just wanted a stable job.

      After he had been roaming for a while, he decided to just be a tramp. So, until the next fall (I believe), he walked around the countryside, begged, stole, and worked. Once he had been doing it for a while, he ran into some other men who had been living the same lifestyle that he had. They taught him so tricks and gave him advice: who to beg from, who to steal from, etc. Jurgis enjoyed this sort of life for a while, but after a certain amount of time, he didn't find much joy in it anymore. That's when he decided to go back to Chicago.

Chapter 21

Prompt 1

      In today's society, risking your life or helping someone in need is usually seen as brave or valiant, especially if the situation is dangerous; however, in the time period that Jurgis was in, no one really thought of it that way. At least, no one who had the lifestyle he did. While Jurgis was working, he tried to help a man, but ended up hurting himself in the process. Nowadays, a lot of people would've thought that what Jurgis did was so brave and *swoon* about it.

     But the situation that most of the people were in was a 'every man for himself' thing, so they really weren't concerned about if someone else was about to burn to death and stuff like that. It's really awful that that's how those times were, but a majority of people could barely take care of themselves, nevertheless another person.

Chapter 20

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

Chapter 19

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.

Chapter 18

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. 

Chapter 17

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. 

Chapter 16

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.

Chapter 15

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. 

Chapter 14

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...

Chapter 13

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.

Chapter 12

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.