Chapters 12 and 13

Chapter 12
Jurgis's ankle is still hurt too bad to work. Jonas disappears and it is looked at as a blessing yet a great loss. The family didn't seem to be too upset about his loss, as it was one less mouth to feed, but it was a loss of income for the family. It is crazy to think that the unfortunate events that have happened in their life have left them not caring about a loss of a family member. The only concern of the family seems to be survival. The families solution to the lost income is to send the Vilimas, age 11, and Nikalojus, age 10, to sell newspapers. We find out in Chapter 13 that these boys end up learning things such as gambling skills, the names and houses of prostitutes, the locations of bars, etc. They sleep on the street as they say, "What was the use of wasting time and energy and a possible carfare riding out to the stockyards every night when the weather was pleasant and they could crawl under a truck or into an empty doorway and sleep exactly as well?" Another interesting point that was brought up in this chapter was mentioned in that section of the text. The idea of stealing from thieves. By this I mean the boys sneaking onto the cars to travel. They say that they say this as being fair. "And besides, the companies were thieves, people said-had stolen all their franchises with the help of scoundrelly politicians!" So if the companies were being crooks and stealing, was it not okay for them to do the same to them? Also at the end of the chapter it states that the only way a man is to make a living is if he is selfish. If he does not marry, if he ignores his parents crying out for help, if he overlooks his starving neighbors, then he can make it on his own. The horrible living conditions of Packingtown seem to suck all of the morals out of its residents and make them as cold as winter, but as cruel as the devil in the flaming heat of hell itself.

Chapter 13
Kristoforas, a crippled son of Teta Elzbieta, dies; they think from the tubercular pork, mentioned in earlier chapters that cannot pass inspection to be exported, but can be sent out there in that town. A death in this town is of no importance to anybody except maybe members of that persons family. It is a never ending cycle. Immigrants come looking to live the American dream, but suffer in this horrible place and wither away and die and more come to replace them. From census.gov linked before, it states, "From 1850 to 1930, the foreign-born population of the United States increased from 2.2 million to 14.2 million." Most of these workers probably came to prosper in America, and the number that suffered, as have Jurgis and his family, compared to the number that actually lived their dream is very likely a heartbreaking and significantly unbalanced number. Jurgis goes to work in the fertilizer mill. Jurgis is going to work at a place that is feared by all the men looking for work. Elzbieta started work making sausages. It describes the sausage making process as fascinating work that is if you are one watching it. The women who do this work are part of a dreadful process stuck in a damp room with the smell of moist flesh all day long. "It was piece work, and she was apt to have a family to keep alive; and stern and ruthless economic laws had arranged it that she could only do this by working just as she did, with all her soul upon her work, and with never an instant for a glance at the well-dressed ladies and gentlemen who came to stare, as at some wild beast in a menagerie." The work is bad enough that these women and all the the people in Packingtown have to do without being stared at as the do it. The people that come to look are shown just enough to admire the process and not experience the gruesomeness of these meat packing industries and such. It is all a lie and a show for the companies to prosper; they really could not possible care any less for any of the lives of the workers. This is where we see Upton Sinclair's view of capitalism. As in the website linked points out through multiple examples that range from 1700's England to today's factories in China. The companies determine profit off of the price of the tools and resources needed to make their product. There is no concern for workers or their wages, and the companies keep low wages and even bad working conditions to make money on the workers. Money is the root of all evil and capitalism certainly verifies this idea.