Ch.+23

Chapter 23 Summary:

Jurgis goes back to Chicago with only fifteen dollars. He looks for work but makes sure to stay clear of the stockyards. As he looks for work, he continually reminds himself that since he is a single man he only has to support himself now. Jurgis gets a job distributing newspapers but loses with within the first few days because men threatened him and were going to report him for being a disturbance. Finally, he gets a job digging tunnels for telephones underground making fifteen cents an hour. This tunnel digging was part of a scandal by the city and the alderman, Sinclair uses this incident to show the flaws in capitalism. But this is the first time that Jurgis has money left over-he pays a dollar a week for his room and four dollars a week for his food. This leaves him with four dollars extra a week, which is an unthinkable amount of money for him. Soon Jurgis realizes that he has no one to come home to, and he misses the family that he used to have. The job that Jurgis is working is still somewhat dangerous. When a car is coming around the corner, it hits him in the shoulder and he is knocked unconscious to the ground. He spends Christmas in the hospital and after two weeks he is released from the hospital to resume work, but because of his arm he cannot work. Jurgis went out onto the streets in the middle of winter with only two dollars and sixty-five cents. He begs for money on the streets and goes into stores, spending a nickel on a drink so that he can warm up.

Characters: -Jurgis

Key Quotes:

“There was a tremendous scandal, of course; it was found that the city records had been falsified and other crimes committed, and some of Chicago’s biggest capitalists got into jail-figuratively speaking”(238).

“An engine and a loaded car dashed round one of the innumerable right-angle branches and struck him upon the shoulder, hurling him against the concrete wall and knocking him senseless”(240).

“Poor Jurgis might have been expected to make a successful beggar. He was just out of the hospital, and desperately sick-looking, and with a helpless arm; also he had no overcoat, and shivered pitifully”(245).