by Pooka

Created on: May 12, 2008

The very early 1900's in this country is marked by horrific working conditions and the constant uphill battle for reform. Upton Sinclair spoke in his novel about the lowest working class, explaining their sorrow and tribulations in vivid detail. He did this in part, by expressing the literal loss of limbs and destruction of body of factory workers in Chicago. The motif of maimed body parts in Sinclair's "The Jungle" serves as a backdrop to show the brutally visceral and barbaric working conditions, and a constant, albeit grotesque, reminder of the harsh working conditions and human loss.

There is an idea expressed in "The Jungle" that human beings are worth no more than the work they can do. The reader is introduced to the characters in the very first chapter by where they work, and exactly how much they make. Most are unskilled workers, and can do nothing save for manual labor. In this aspect, people are nothing more than the physical strength and endurance their bodies hold. When first looking for work a young minded Jurgis actually says "Do you want me to believe that with these arms" and he would clench his fists and hold them up in the air, so that you might see the rolling muscles that with these arms people will ever let me starve?" At this point in the novel, his body is fresh and strong. Jurgis even finds his first job in a matter of hours, while his body is still healthy and whole. His life has value, so long as his arms are still strong.

Unfortunately no one stays strong forever, and when unskilled laborers are unfit to labor, there is nothing left for them. Sinclair first shows this with the grisly fate of Dede Antanas. "He would lie there and cough and cough, day and night, wasting away to a mere skeleton. There came a time when there was so little flesh on him that the bones began to poke through" Antanas worked in a dark pickling room where saltpeter dissolved his boots then his feet, and worsened his cough to an unbearable degree. Yet he worked every day as hard and diligently as he could, even though he knew the work was stealing his body and ending his life. In the end, he could earn no money on his determination alone. His ideas and his thoughts were penniless. His body was destroyed beyond repair, and so the life of old Antanas was worthless long before his agonizing death.

Idealism and hope are quickly dashed away in the merciless jungle of employment in Chicago's Stockyards. It is a common idiom to say one puts his blood and sweat into his

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