chapter5

Chapter 5 Summary:

This chapter focuses on the start of Jurgis’s life after buying his house. Sinclair explains how in their life they are targeted to buy numerous different products through advertisements. Jurgis falls trap to American society and ends up using all of his money to buy more products for his house. He gets so worried about the little money that he has that he can barely sleep at night. Ona and Jurgis have fallen for the values of American society including caring out material values. Jurgis explains how hard the work is at the killing beds. Later in the chapter he realizes that life in America is not what he had thought it would be. He has to work long hours in terrible conditions. Jurgis is angered by the Unions-why would someone take his money from him when he’s working? There is a lot of competition between the men at the job because they are worried about someone else taking their job. People are replaced frequently on the job, and he worries that he could easily lose his job, too. The chapter ends with Jurgis beginning to lose his faith in America after witnessing the “downers”, and working for extremely long hours with barely enough money to pay for what he needs.

Characters: -Jurgis -Ona

Key Passages:

“They had no money to spend for the pleasure of spending, but there were a few absolutely necessary things, and the buying of these was a perpetual adventure for Ona”(58).

“The pace they set here, it was one that called for every faculty of a man…there was never one instant’s rest for a man, for his hand or his eye or his brain”(59).

“And all the men of the same rank were pitted against each other; the accounts of each were kept separately, and every man lived in terror of losing his job”(62).