The Jungle

by Upton Sinclair

To do that would mean, not merely to be defeated, but to acknowledge defeat--and the difference between these two things is what keeps the world going.

Our friends were not poetical, and the sight suggested to them no metaphors of human destiny; they thought only of the wonderful efficiency of it all.

It was all so very businesslike that one watched it fascinated. It was porkmaking by machinery, porkmaking by applied mathematics. And yet somehow the most matter-of-fact person could not help thinking of the hogs; they were so innocent, they came so very trustingly; and they were so very human in their protests--and so perfectly within their rights! They had done nothing to deserve it; and it was adding insult to injury, as the thing was done here, swinging them up in this cold-blooded, impersonal way, without a pretense of apology, without the homage of a tear.

One could not stand and watch very long without becoming philosophical, without beginning to deal in symbols and similes, and to hear the hog squeal of the universe.

The great corporation which employed you lied to you, and lied to the whole country--from top to bottom it was nothing but one gigantic lie.

"Deeper their heart grows and nobler their bearing, Whose youth in the fires of anguish hath died."

They would no sooner escape, as by a miracle, from one difficulty, than a new one would come into view. In addition to all their physical hardships, there was thus a constant strain upon their minds; they were harried all day and nearly all night by worry and fear. This was in truth not living; it was scarcely even existing, and they felt that it was too little for the price they paid. They were willing to work all the time; and when people did their best, ought they not to be able to keep alive?

When it was over, the soul of Jurgis was a song, for he had met the enemy and conquered, and felt himself the master of his fate.--So

The vilest deeds, like poison weeds, Bloom well in prison air; It is only what is good in Man That wastes and withers there; Pale Anguish keeps the heavy gate, And the Warder is Despair. So wrote a poet, to whom the world had dealt its justice-- I know not whether Laws be right, Or whether Laws be wrong; All that we know who lie in gaol Is that the wall is strong. And they do well to hide their hell, For in it things are done That Son of God nor son of Man Ever should look upon!

He nodded to her, and she came and sat by him, and they had more drink, and then he went upstairs into a room with her, and the wild beast rose up within him and screamed, as it has screamed in the Jungle from the dawn of time.

He had now no home to go to; he had no affection left in his life--only the pitiful mockery of it in the camaraderie of vice.

There is one kind of prison where the man is behind bars, and everything that he desires is outside; and there is another kind where the things are behind the bars, and the man is outside.

have known what it is to dare and to aspire, to dream mighty dreams and to see them perish--to see all the fair flowers of my spirit trampled into the mire by the wild-beast powers of my life.

Can you not see that the task is your task--yours to dream, yours to resolve, yours to execute?

He could not think at all, he was stunned; yet he knew that in the mighty upheaval that had taken place in his soul, a new man had been born. He had been torn out of the jaws of destruction, he had been delivered from the thraldom of despair; the whole world had been changed for him--he was free, he was free!

"I am not defending the Vatican," exclaimed Lucas, vehemently. "I am defending the word of God--which is one long cry of the human spirit for deliverance from the sway of oppression.

the Jesus of the awful reality, the man of sorrow and pain, the outcast, despised of the world, who had nowhere to lay his head--"

"Well, then," cried Lucas, "and why should Jesus have nothing to do with his church--why should his words and his life be of no authority among those who profess to adore him? Here is a man who was the world's first revolutionist, the true founder of the Socialist movement; a man whose whole being was one flame of hatred for wealth, and all that wealth stands for,--for the pride of wealth, and the luxury of wealth, and the tyranny of wealth; who was himself a beggar and a tramp, a man of the people, an associate of saloon-keepers and women of the town;

"This Jesus of Nazareth!" he cried. "This class-conscious working-man! This union carpenter! This agitator, law-breaker, firebrand, anarchist! He, the sovereign lord and master of a world which grinds the bodies and souls of human beings into dollars--if he could come into the world this day and see the things that men have made in his name, would it not blast his soul with horror?

And now shall we leave him in the hands of his enemies--shall we allow them to stifle and stultify his example? We have his words, which no one can deny; and shall we not quote them to the people, and prove to them what he was, and what he taught, and what he did? No, no, a thousand times no!--we shall use his authority to turn out the knaves and sluggards from his ministry, and we shall yet rouse the people to action!--"

"Manifestly not, since some work is easy and some hard, and we should have millions of rural mail carriers, and no coal miners. Of course the wages may be left the same, and the hours varied; one or the other will have to be varied continually, according as a greater or less number of workers is needed in any particular industry. That is precisely what is done at present, except that the transfer of the workers is accomplished blindly and imperfectly, by rumors and advertisements, instead of instantly and completely, by a universal government bulletin."