Contreras1
Clarissa Contreras
Communications 103
Professor Davis
20 September 2015
The Jungle Book Review
“The Jungle” written by Upton Sinclair, This book takes place in twentieth century. The
two characters in the beginning are Ona Lukoszaite and Jurgis Ruckus, they are immigrants from
Lithuanian. They have just arrived in Chicago an d are going to be married. In the customs of
Lithuanian there is wedding feast is called a veselija. At the veselija they will provide food, beer,
and music, they will invite people to celebrate and they are allowed to eat and drink as much at
they want. The important part of this veselija is called the aczziavimas, which is like a money
dance in America. Each male will dance with the bride and after the male dances with the bride
they are expected to put money in a hat to help the newlyweds pay for their wedding. It was very
interesting that they mentioned in the book that the veselija could cost more than three hundred
dollars. It was a very different time back then because the average wedding now a days cost ten
thousand dollars and up. The unfortunate thing that happened at Ona and Jurgis’s veselija is that
the guest were taking advantage of the newlyweds by eating and drinking a lot and not contribut–
ing any money to them. Another unfortunate thing that happens to the immigrants when they
have celebrations like this is that the saloon keepers claim that the guest drank more than they
actually did and charge the newlyweds more than expected. Ona begins to notice that many
guests are leaving without paying and she begins to worry about the cost. She is worried that
they will not be able to afford the bill the saloonkeeper is going to be giving them. Jurgis reas-
sures her that everything will be fine and he will work harder to earn more money and pay the
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bill. Jurgis knows he must go to work early in the morning and he cannot be late. During these
times if someone was a minute late to work they would lose an hours worth of pay, if someone
was twenty minutes late they would lose their job.
In chapter two he speaks more about the background of Jurgis and his family. Ona’s fa-
ther had passed away and it caused the family to have a lot of debt. As a result they had lost their
farm and dwindled their savings down to almost nothing. They discussed about going to America
where they had heard the wages were higher, but Ona was scared because her step mother and
siblings were in Lithuania. Ona’s stepmother (Teta Elzbieta) brother knew of a man who went to
America and had made a fortune. Hearing this encouraged them to make this trip work, he
worked hard and saved money to make this journey. Jurgis had even convinced his father, Dede
Antanas to come with him and Ona’s family to America. Even Ona’s cousin had decided to go
