The Jungle

To Jurgis’s relief, the judge he appears before the next morning doesn’t recognize him and allows him to leave when he explains that Marija is a relative. The prostitutes, meanwhile, are fined five dollars each and released.

As he walks back to the brothel with Marija, she admits that she’s addicted to morphine: “If the girls didn't booze they couldn't stand it any time at all. And the madame always gives them dope when they first come, and they learn to like it” (331). When pressed by Jurgis, she says she expects to stay at the brothel indefinitely; although she earns a relatively large amount of money, much of it goes to her food and board, so she's unable to put any aside. This, she says, is one of the ways in which women become trapped in the profession.

After hearing Jurgis’s own story, Marija promises to help him find a job and gives him Elzbieta’s address. Still reluctant to accept her help, Jurgis spends the rest of the day searching for work. As he debates what to do next, he happens to pass by the hall where the political rally was held. There is another event going on tonight, and he decides to go inside.

Initially, Jurgis pays little attention to the speakers and even begins to fall asleep. The young woman sitting next to him nudges him awake, advising him to listen. Confused, Jurgis turns to the speaker, who is pleading with the crowd not to resign themselves to their fate as workers, which grows more desperate all the time.

The speaker continues, detailing the crimes and corruption of the capitalist elite, who profit off of the suffering of most of society and who control the political system. He concludes by urging his listeners to deliver themselves from their subjugation, and the audience erupts in cheers. Jurgis joins them, exhilarated to hear his struggles explained so clearly and to feel that he can do something about them.

Jurgis sits impatiently through the rest of the meeting. When it begins to break up, he approaches the speaker. Haltingly, he expresses his gratitude and his desire to learn more about socialism.

The speaker sends for a Polish man named Ostrinski, who proposes taking a walk. As they do, he listens to Jurgis's story and then invites him to spend the night in his home. Once there, he uses his own family’s experience to begin fleshing out the socialist critique of capitalism: “The finishing of pants did not take much skill, and anybody could learn it, and so the pay was forever getting less. That was the competitive wage system; and if Jurgis wanted to understand what Socialism was, it was there he had best begin” (350). By contrast, he says, the capitalist class is able to work in cooperation with one another to protect their own interests. Nevertheless, the working class will one day take control of both the means of production and the government itself.

Next, Ostrinski outlines the basic organization of the Socialist Party and explains that it is gaining a foothold in Chicago and in the broader U.S. He stresses, however, that to be successful it must be a worldwide movement. Ostrinski also tells Jurgis he will bring him with him to the next Party meeting, assuring him that he will be able to join even if he can’t pay the usual fees. Exhilarated, Jurgis doesn’t go to sleep until well past midnight.

The next morning, Jurgis goes to Elzbieta’s address, eager to share what he has learned. Elzbieta initially finds his enthusiasm alarming but ultimately decides to humor him: “All that interested her […] was whether or not it had a tendency to make him sober and industrious; and when she found he intended to look for work […] she gave him full rein to convince her of anything” (356).

Within a week, Jurgis finds a job as a hotel porter, only to discover that the proprietor—Hinds—is the Socialist Party’s state organizer. Hinds is equally delighted to learn of Jurgis’s political leanings; he often talks politics with customers, and on his urging, Jurgis shares his own story with them as well.

Jurgis’s enthusiasm doesn’t wane as time goes on. In fact, he’s so thoroughly convinced of socialism’s correctness that he’s prone to growing impatient with anyone who isn’t immediately persuaded by his arguments. In order to address objections more effectively, Jurgis reads a variety of newspapers and socialist texts. He also attends many political meetings, during which he listens to speeches by some of the party’s leaders.

Jurgis becomes a particularly devoted reader of a weekly publication called the “Appeal to Reason,” which runs stories on the tribulations of workers, exposés of the wealthy, reports on campaigns and strikes, and political manifestos. He covertly distributes this paper in Packingtown, where socialist sentiment is growing.

The night before Election Day, Jurgis is invited to a discussion sponsored by a philanthropic millionaire with the goal of providing a more nuanced view of socialism to a skeptical newspaper editor. He arrives in the middle of a back-and-forth exchange between a former evangelist named Lucas and a philosophy professor named Schliemann who now studies nutrition. Although both men are socialists, they differ on many issues. Schliemann is highly critical of traditional institutions like marriage and religion. Lucas, on the other hand, argues that the teachings of Jesus Christ should not be confused with the form human religion has taken.

Eventually, the editor interrupts, confused by how little Lucas and Schliemann seem to agree on:

This resulted, after much debating, in the formulating of two carefully worded propositions: First, that a Socialist believes in the common ownership and democratic management of the means of producing the necessities of life; and, second, that a Socialist believes that the means by which this is to be brought about is the class-conscious political organization of the wage-earners (376).

Schliemann then elaborates more on his views as a philosophic anarchist: material goods are finite and should therefore be held in common, but individual autonomy is paramount where intellectual, artistic, or spiritual “goods” are concerned. He further explains that, once production is more efficient, people will only have to work roughly an hour each day and will therefore have ample free time to devote to these other pursuits. He then details some of the waste involved in the capitalist system—for instance, the fact that it may produce too much of a product due to a lack of oversight. Finally, while discussing his vision of a socialist society, he explains that he believes the consumption of meat will eventually become a thing of the past; it isn’t necessary for human survival, and the labor involved in producing it is not something workers would choose to do if they had any other options.

The following night, Jurgis and the other hotel employees wait as election results come in. When the results are tallied, it becomes clear that the Socialist Party has made dramatic gains across the United States. The results are especially striking in Packingtown. An orator takes to the stage, urging his listeners to remain active and proclaiming that Chicago will lead the way in the movement going forward.