1. What is civilization, according to Jurgis? Is his world civilized? Explain.
2. Describe the adventure of Jurgis’s life.
3. What are some of the things that he sees and experiences for the first time on his adventure?
4. What do you believe is the purpose of this chapter?
1. What is civilization, according to Jurgis? Is his world civilized? Explain.
ReplyDeleteI don't believe the world is civilized in Jurgis eyes. He beleives that the world should give merit for the good work you do and the integrity you hold as a person. He sees time after time again that honesty means little and merit is only as far as your wallet can stretch in his situation.
2. Describe the adventure of Jurgis’s life.
ReplyDeleteJurgis is walking down a side street when he sees a man coming towards him. Jurgis asks the man for some money to find a bed to sleep in that night. Jurgis soon realizes the man is drunk and Jurgis starts telling the man some of his troubles. The guy seems sympathetic and invites Jurgis home with him to have dinner. The guy's father is away on business and the servants have been assigned to watch him. Jurgis asks his new friend who is Freddie Jones, if he lives far away. Freddie tells Jurgis to call them a cab and he fumbles a huge wad of bills out of his pocket. Jurgis stares at the money while Freddie says he will run through this money in a week. Jurgis realizes that he could easily steal this guy's money and run away. Freddie is too drunk to stop him, but Jurgis has never committed a crime before. Freddie pulls a hundred dollar bill out of the wad and gives it to Jurgis before putting the rest away. A cab arrives and takes both Jurgis and Freddie in the direction of Freddie's home. Freddie falls asleep curled up against Jurgis. Jurgis is still thinking about robbing Freddie, but he decides to be happy with the hundred. The cab stops in front of a giant mansion. A butler opens the door and Jurgis follows Freddie. Jurgis is looking around at all of this wealth. Freddie lets slip that his father owns Jones's packing plant. Freddie invites Jurgis to spend the night and Freddie orders some wine from the butler to be brought to them. Eventually, Freddie falls asleep and the butler comes quietly in and tells Jurgis to get out of the house. Jurgis starts moving towards the door and Hamilton the butler tries to search Jurgis to make sure that he has not stolen anything. Jurgis refuses to let Hamilton search him and Hamilton does not try to fight Jurgis. As Jurgis walks out the door of the mansion, though, Hamilton does give Jurgis a sharp kick to the butt that sends him sprawling down the stairs.
4. What do you believe is the purpose of this chapter?
Jurgis’s encounter with Freddie Jones is meant to illustrate the difference in standard of living between employers and the wage laborers who work for them. Jones is a drunken and hands out one-hundred-dollar bills as if they were nothing. The luxury of Freddie’s home illustrates his father’s extravagant waste of the wealth generated through wage slavery. Freddie seems to be a classic case of the poor little rich boy who is spoiled.
1. What is civilization, according to Jurgis? Is his world civilized? Explain. Jurgis’s world is not civilized as a civilized world would entail people being kind and civilized to one another and not a speck of that has happened to him. He is entirely outcast at this juncture and desperate, he feels entirely unwanted and frowned upon, like all the other “wretches” who are deemed worthless and deplorable. The civilized world would not use and throw these men away, would not push a man to the brink of starvation and poverty to make sure they got every last use out of him.
ReplyDelete2. Describe the adventure of Jurgis’s life. Jurgis encounter’s a son of the “governor” who has great wealth and is welcomed into the company of a “gentleman”, be it a drunk one. He is asked to join him to his mansion and have dinner with him; he is able to see how the rich live so extravagantly and realizes the wastefulness of the select few.
4. What do you believe is the purpose of this chapter? I found the purpose of this chapter to educate the reader of the lavish extravagance with which the wealthy lived. Working class families were placed in horrible and toxic conditions in order for the wealthy few to be able to buy forty-thousand dollar pools, have butlers and chefs available to serve them at all time when families are literally starving. It served to compare and contrast the differences of the wealthy and the working class families and how the working man toiled for nothing while the wealthy benefited entirely without a care for how they came about their wealth