Chapters 16 and 17

In chapters sixteen and seventeen Jurgis and his family go through the hardest thing yet.

Chapter sixteen starts off with a drastic change of events. Jurgis is being escorted to jail for the crimes that he has committed against Ona’s boss. While he is in jail he begins to think about his family and how they will live without his support and money. 

“-the later stiff as boards with filth, and alive with fleas, bedbugs, and lice. When Jugis lifted up the mattress he discovered beneath it a layer of scurrying roaches, almost as badly frightened as himself.”

When Jurgis arrives at the prison he realizes that it is really unsanitary. It has roaches and all kinds of bugs in the beds. Ironically though the prison guards make him take a longer bath than the other prisoners because he smells like fertilizer. 

“Jurgis would have spoken again, but the policeman had seized him by the collar and was twisting it, and a second policeman was making for him with evidently hostile intentions.”

Jurgis had his trial and it was completely unfair being that he couldn’t really speak that well and the judge was not really on his side. Jurgis ended up with thirty days in jail. When the trial was over Jurgis was moved to a different jail where during the day, he went outside to break stones. This had no meaning other than to keep the prisoners busy during the day and give them something to do in the 1900’s.

While Jurgis was working he got a visitor at the jail. It was Stanislovas. He was sent to tell Jurgis about the conditions at their home. He told Jurgis that Ona was very sick, lost her job, and could not work. Marija had cut her hand badly and it turned green and the doctor said that they would most likely have to cut it off. To top it all off a big snow came and the able can not work because they simply can not get to work.

Times are very hard for the characters in the book. Jurgis is locked away and is powerless to help his family, Ona is sick and has lost her job, and all other members of the family cannot go to work due to the weather. Maybe the American Dream is not a dream at all but an American Nightmare.

”When the night fell he was pacing up and down his cell like a wild beast that breaks its teeth upon the bars of its cage.”

This a simile because in is using like to compare Jurgis to a wild beast because he is very angry and scared and is pacing up and down the cell.