The Jungle

The next day, Jurgis gets a cellmate: a handsome, well-dressed young man who exchanges friendly commiserations with Jurgis and introduces himself as Jack Duane.

Duane is a safebreaker and petty criminal who has been to jail before. Once an engineer, he turned to a life of crime after being cheated out of the patent for an invention: “He was a genial freebooter, living off the enemy, without fear or shame. He was not always victorious, but then defeat did not mean annihilation, and need not break his spirit” (184). Duane knows and introduces Jurgis to many of the other inmates, most of whom blame society for their situation. Before Jurgis leaves for his trial, Duane gives him his address, telling him to visit if he ever needs help.

To Jurgis’s disappointment, Connor is still alive; he takes the stand and claims that Jurgis attacked him after he fired Ona for insolence. When Jurgis himself is questioned, he reluctantly counters with the true story. Scoffing that Ona would surely have quit her position if Connor had made sexual advances, Judge Callahan sentences Jurgis to 30 days in prison; he is likewise unsympathetic when Jurgis questions how his family will live in his absence.

Jurgis is taken to Bridewell prison and put to work breaking stones. After ten days, Stanislovas visits and informs Jurgis just how badly off the family now is: Elzbieta’s factory has been shut down, and Marija has been forced to take time off work as the result of an infected cut. Meanwhile, Ona is extremely sick. Due to the family’s desperation, she tried to return to her job but was turned away. As for Stanislovas, he lost his position after a snowstorm prevented him from getting to work for several days; he is now selling papers with Nikalojus, Vilimas, and Kotrina. Jurgis sends Stanislovas home with all the money he has, which only amounts to 14 cents.

Jurgis must spend an extra three days in prison to cover his court expenses. When he’s released, it takes him nearly a full day to find his way back to Packingtown on foot.

When Jurgis finally reaches his house late in the afternoon, he sees that it’s painted a different color; in fact, much of the house seems changed or refurbished. An unfamiliar boy answers Jurgis’s knock. When Jurgis demands to know where his family is, the boy’s mother confusedly explains that she bought the house three days ago, having been told it was brand-new. Jurgis races to Grandmother Majauszkiene’s house, and she tells him that his family is staying with Aniele Jukniene; they were evicted for failing to make payments. Momentarily overcome, Jurgis sits down and sobs, thinking about how much the family sacrificed to pay for the house.

When Jurgis arrives at Aniele’s house, he hears Ona screaming in pain and pushes his way inside. Marija stops him when he tries to climb up to Ona in the garret, explaining that she’s in labor. Shocked—Ona isn’t due yet—Jurgis questions Marija and is horrified to learn that only Elzbieta is attending to her; the family had no money to pay for a doctor or midwife. Seeing his distress, Aniele offers him what little money she has and encourages the other women who have gathered for the birth to do the same. With this money in hand, Jurgis leaves to find a midwife.  

Jurgis finds a midwife named Madame Haupt Hebamme. She typically charges 25 dollars, and when she learns that Jurgis has only $1.25 and no immediate job prospects, she refuses to come. Jurgis continues to plead with her and she finally consents to treat Ona. Jurgis returns to Aniele’s with her, and Aniele tells Jurgis he should leave for the duration of Ona’s labor.

In the evening as it begins to snow, Jurgis seeks shelter in a saloon. Hearing his story, the saloon-keeper takes pity on him and gives him food and drink for free before showing him to a back room where he can rest.

Around four in the morning, Jurgis can’t bear waiting any longer and returns to Aniele’s; the women are still there, but Ona is no longer crying out. Suddenly, a voice calls out from the attic, and Marija goes to help Madame Haupt down the stairs. To Jurgis’s horror, the midwife is covered in blood. She says that there’s nothing more she can do and that it isn’t her fault he waited so long to send for her. Jurgis rushes up into the garret and to Ona’s side. Extremely pale and emaciated, Ona briefly opens her eyes before dying.

Frantic with grief, Jurgis is only dimly aware of a priest who is trying to console him. In the morning, he staggers downstairs just as Kotrina—who hasn’t yet heard the news—returns from selling papers. Without offering any explanation, Jurgis demands that she give him the three dollars she’s earned and then goes to the first saloon he sees.

Jurgis returns home a day later, having spent all of Kotrina’s earnings on alcohol. Aniele rebukes him, saying that Elzbieta is out begging in an attempt to raise money for Ona’s funeral mass. Furthermore, Aniele says she will evict him if he can’t catch up on rent. Jurgis settles next to Ona’s body, agonizing over the misery he brought to her. When Elzbieta returns that night, she pleads with him to pull himself together for his son’s sake.

The next day, Jurgis goes to the fertilizer plant in the hopes of getting his job back, but he is denied with little explanation. After a weeklong search, he is finally offered a job elsewhere, but when he returns the following day he is told there’s no work after all: “Out in the saloons the men could tell him all about the meaning of it; they gazed at him with pitying eyes—poor devil, he was blacklisted! […] Why, he stood as much chance of getting a job in Packingtown as of being chosen mayor of Chicago” (220).

The family discusses moving, but Marija and Elzbieta are still hopeful they can find work in Packingtown. Consequently, they send Jurgis alone to downtown Chicago to look for work. After two weeks with little luck, Jurgis stumbles across a former union acquaintance who helps him get a job at a factory that produces harvesting equipment. The working conditions are relatively good, and the company even provides some amenities to their employees, including a reading room. With his new wages, Jurgis is able to pay his rent and resume thinking of the future. Just nine days after he’s hired, however, the factory closes.

Jurgis spends the next week and a half fruitlessly searching for work downtown. When he returns home, he learns of a job prospect. Juozapas, Elzbieta’s youngest surviving child, was searching for scraps of food in the dump when a well-dressed young lady approached him. The woman asked him about his family and visited the entire household the next day. After hearing their story, she gave them food and a letter introducing the bearer to her fiancé: the superintendent at a steel mill.

Jurgis goes to the factory and presents his letter. A timekeeper takes him on a tour of the factory as he considers where to put Jurgis to work. Jurgis is intimidated by the noise and activity:

“[S]uddenly, without an instant's warning, one of the giant kettles began to tilt and topple, flinging out a jet of hissing, roaring flame. Jurgis shrank back appalled, for he thought it was an accident; there fell a pillar of white flame, dazzling as the sun, swishing like a huge tree falling in the forest” (232).

At last, Jurgis is assigned a place moving the completed steel rails.

Because the steelworks is fifteen miles from Packingtown, it is only practical for Jurgis to return home once a week; he spends the rest of his nights at a lodging-house. Accidents are common at the factory, and at one point Jurgis loses a week’s work after burning his hands. Nevertheless, he quickly adjusts to the job. Back in Packingtown, Elzbieta finds work scrubbing floors, while Marija gets a position trimming beef.

Jurgis continues to dote on his son who is now roughly a year and a half old. However, one Saturday he returns home to find a crowd gathered in Aniele’s and Marija crying upstairs. Alarmed, he tries to go up to the garret, but Aniele stops him, telling him that Antanas is dead.