The Jungle by Sinclair and The Black Boy by Writes - Essay Example

Final Paper Jenna Maldonado Adelphi ‘The Jungle’ by Sinclair and ‘The Black Boy’ by Writes are novels which try to address the issues ofthe prejudiced in the society. In this case, the two address Lithuanian immigrants and racism respectively. The Jungle shows the sufferings of the immigrants as they try to survive poor living conditions and the hurdles of finding jobs in a highly classist society. On the other hand, The Black Boy shows how the African Americans react differently to the racism they have to face as they are discriminated against in terms of the jobs they do, the treatment in those jobs and how they are perceived by these whites. Jurgus, the main character in the Sinclair, for instance is a diligent man who works hard to fend for his family. He gets a job in “Packingtown” which is a low class district with many slaughterhouses and meatpackers. He, together with others in his family had hoped to get big opportunities; they had an American dream, which of course does not happen. Their very vicious bosses exploit them a lot. They got to hire and fire their employees based on their profit making capabilities. They would also misuse them to the maximum before firing them since they knew that hiring new workers would not be a problem. The blacks; instead of teaming up against these bosses, they responded to such poor treatment by just enduring the suffering. On the other hand the unemployed are said to have been waiting at the gates of these factories, as they offered their services for as low wages as a dollar. Of course this encouraged their bosses to continue mistreating their workers and offering meager wages without been challenged. The diligent Jurgis faces challenges but he is a high-spirited man. He always says that he will ‘work harder’ and this is seen even when he loses his jobs. He faces a number of disappointments in life which push him to becoming an alcoholic. He also gets to shift from job to job so many times so as to continue providing for his family. He goes as far as to join the criminal underground group of Chicago as he tries to make ends meet. He moves till finally he settles and in a way finds peace in the Communist Party. Corruption in Packingtown is so prevalent and it causes the immigrants have to learn survive by been good at cheating. Jurgis family through the experiences from when they get scammed at the bar in the beginning of the novel, through the scum by the real estate company till towards the end of the book where Jurgis is lured into an election scam that he ends up joining show how for one to survive in Packingtown is to cheat others too. Jurgis. As a naïve newcomer, Jurgis was a prey to many which he revenges to other naïve new comers like him without mercy. He goes to the extent of beating up so as to rob him and does not care even when he reads about it in the newspaper. If all people were equal in this town then there would be no need to scam one another. However it is not the case and therefore the only way to survive is to cheat too. Just like in the Jungle people cheat and scam each other to survive, Wright’s “Black Boy” also depicts how people had to become hostile to survive the hostility around them. Richard’s childhood life causes him to learn to defend himself in a hostile way. As a young boy, he received a lot of beatings as punishment from the authoritative figures around him. His grandmother kicks him out of the house because he blasphemed God and did other "Devil stuff." He is later beaten because he was obscene to his grandmother. While at Clarks residence, Clark and Jody punish him for using bad words. While enrolled in a religious school where her aunt Addie taught, she intentionally made Richard look like a bad example such that she even punished him for things he was said to have done yet were not true. At some point Addie threatens to beat him and in his defense grabs a kitchen knife. Richard’s Uncle Tom who disapproved the tone in his voice and threatened to beat him one time. Richard however defends himself against him by grabbing razorblades. Richard’s early life had indeed taught him to stand up to those in authority over him and who got hostile towards him. When Richard came to the realization that there was racism by the whites against the blacks, his hatred for the whites deepens more than just for the racial injustice. On hearing rumors about racial beatings and murders by the whites, Richard describes how he imagined men to whom he was powerless, giving "meaning to the confused defensive feelings that had long been sleeping." The whites symbolically represented all those authority figures in his life who had oppressed him in any way through intimidation. This is despite the fact that he had never faced oppression from the whites. Fleeing was a way some people responded to the white man’s threats in “The Black Boy”. Richard’s aunt Maggie marries Professor Mathew, a black man who is mysterious and does things secretly, such as visiting Aunt Maggie in secrecy. Mathew kills a white woman and to avoid trouble, he and Maggie flee for the North. Another incidence is when Richard’s Uncle Hoskins is killed by white men who had coveted his successful saloon business. The family packed their clothes and other things into a farmers wagon quickly and fled for their grandmother’s house, even without a funeral for their uncle. Richard develop strong attitudes and feelings against the whites and he does not allow himself to be the white mans’ lapdog. To get money for food, Richard tries to sell his dog but refuses to sell it when Betsy, a white woman tries to buy it simply because he can’t sell it to a white. He gets isolated by his schoolmates for lack of money and so, to get some money he gets a job for selling papers. He drops this job when he learns that they are used to spread racist propaganda. He is later informed that the papers he used to sell were full of racist propaganda and other Ku Klux Klan articles. He then gets a job where he does chores for a white woman. He does not go back because he is mistreated such that he is given stale bread, he is asked whether he stole and is told that niggers could never be writers. He goes to work for a different white family for serving breakfast and doing other chores. He is bitten by his boss’s dog when he took a job at brickyard. The white man in charge claims that a dog cannot hurt a nigger and therefore does not receive any treatment. He then writes a story "The Voodoo of Hells half-Acre," which was published in a local Negro newspaper. However, he does not receive any positive feedback from his family members and peers. Considering this papers were to their aid, his family members and friends should have encouraged and supported him, but they do not. Standing up for what he believed in was one of Richard’s characters. On graduating, he is elected valedictorian. The principle gives him a speech he had written for him to read but he refuses. He refuses and reads a speech he had written himself and this costs him an opportunity to attain a teaching position. Being desperate for money, he is pushed to the extent of acting as a porter and it is while here that he witnesses a lot of brutal treatment of the black people. His strong personality makes him get driven off different jobs since the whites do not approve of his attitude and how he acts. They thought he did not he laugh and talk like other niggers. He gets a job at a Yankee-owned optical trade shop where his boss was a decent one but two of his white employees, Pease and Reynolds harass him into leaving his job. He gets another job as a cleaning boy at a hotel where he gets other black boys of his age. He witnesses Shorty, a black boy degrade himself such that he lets a white man kick his ass for a quarter. Such things are what annoyed people like Richard. It is similar in The Jungle where the jobless people get so desperate that they are ready to work for so little money. This of course made their working conditions worse such that if the ones working left, hiring others for less pay will still be possible. Richard leaves his job to take another job at a theater where he is involved in a ticket scam. He manages to make enough money from the scam to move to Memphis. He gets another job at another optical company. The head foreman incites him against another black boy who worked with him. He constantly provokes them to kill each other and he finally offers each of them five dollars if they will box each other. To get the money, they agree that they will fight till they get exhausted. The workers plight in Packingtown is shown to the readers. There were reforms meant to improve the working conditions and Reforms in working conditions and this was a major reason that many people got persuaded to join movements for the socialist workers. As they first looked at the filthy meatpacking plants in Packingtown, Jurgis and Ona expresses their eagerness to start working. They believed that it was the most important and decent thing to do so as to survive. Jurgis gets a smelly and disgusting gets a job for sweeping up slaughtered cow guts in a factory. He gets paid two dollars and for him this makes him happy despite the poor working conditions. The readers also get to know that as much as there were some signs that sanitation was good, at times carcasses from diseased animals bypassed inspection. Worse off, rotten meat is at times mixed with other canned meat. This is really disgusting and disturbing, implying that people usually bought and ate rotten meat. Sometime later, other workers try to recruit him into joinin a union with the intent of stopping pacemakers from "speeding up the gang". He refuses and gets the idea that those workers were just being lazy. When the winter kills many workers in Packingtown due to inadequate heat in the factories, many other people wait in line to replace the dead workers. These people waiting to replace the dead could have called for mass action so that working conditions are improved but they do not. They are too concerned about getting even very little money than they are about their working conditions. Richard comes across the John Reed Club, a Communist organization for the arts which he joins in the hope of getting an opportunity to learn to write and publish. Inter-club politics happen and Richard is elected as the executive secretary of the club. So as to humanize the Communist Party for common black men, Richard does a book of autobiographical sketches. At some point, the party suspects him of being like Ross, a fellow member who was been accused of inciting people against the party. At some point, Richard is accused of being a supporter of his colleague who is accused of inciting others against the party. The goals of the party disillusion him and he tries to severe his relations with it. The organization disgusts him and he decides that the only way he was going to be able to reach the common man would be through his writing. The party decides to disband the John Reed Clubs. As they go to New York where the members were to discuss the dissolving of the clubs, Richard does not get a room to stay because he is black. There was an ironic antagonism displayed by the blacks towards the Jews as part of their "cultural heritage." They did this for similar reasons as those that caused the whites to oppress the blacks. The black children persecuted the Jews with their insulting songs and chants. Other than for the fact that this was taught to them at home and in Sunday school, there was no reason for their beliefs. Richard grows older and begins associating with older Black Boys who share his "learned" hostility towards the whites and the "degrees of values" assigned to race. The conversations the gang had are the ways through which "the culture of one black household was thus transmitted to another black household." With his gang, Richard participated in fights against white boys, throwing rocks and bottles, sometimes needing medical attention afterwards. Their conversations and actions revolved around their racial insecurities, confusion, and hatred without them having to discuss racism. This is one way through which the blacks failed in their fight against prejudice such that they allowed themselves to be subservient to the whites. The never talked against these prejudice openly and boldly. The writer of ‘The Jungle’ shows how people, represented by Jurgis’ family struggle to survive in an environment guided by survival for the fittest. This struggle destroys the unity of families that was once enjoyed. Marija who lost faith in the bank starts hiding her money in her clothing. Money had held some power of them causing them to drift apart as a family. Phil Connor, one of Ona’s bosses tries to sleep with her and rapes her on her refusal. He continually forced her into sleeping with her with the threats that he will fire all her family members dared she refuse. Capitalists forced people to give in to their oppressive demands for their survival. Ona finally decides to tell Jurgis of the ordeal and he rushes to the factory and beats up Connor. He is thrown in after which he is blacklisted from every employer in Packingtown. The family is thrown out of their house when Jurgis returns from jail. This struggle for money cost the family the values they previously upheld. It also burdened their love for each other and caused them to drift further and further apart. The problems that used to exist are no more and Jurgis settles in the socialist system which is considered righteous and which is promoted to solve the many problems in the world. At one point Jurgis wanders into a political rally for the socialists where the speaker inspires him a lot to join and embrace them in the pursuit of having workers, and not just some few wealthy capitalistic people owning factories. These two novels depict how it is possible for one to stand up for themselves despite being deprived of power. If people work together they can overcome these prejudices such as racism and classism. People have a right to good working conditions, to life, to education, speech and basic necessities. In both novels, some of these right were deprived to people and most flee or shy away from standing up for themselves. It may not be easy to stand against such societal evils aloe but it is possible. However, unity in these things makes things easier! Works Cited Sinclair, Upton. The jungle. University of Illinois Press, 1988. Wright, Richard. "Black Boy. 1945." Wright: Later Works (1966). Read More