once there was a wedding in the jungle essay

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How I Survived a Wedding in a Jungle That Tried to Eat Me Alive

Nothing says “I do” like a small blood sacrifice

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I lie half naked and miserable in a puddle of my own sweat. I open the tent flap to breathe but there’s no relief, even at midnight. Who comes to the Guatemalan jungle in July?

Yesterday’s hike was rough, but the 15 miles today were raw pain. The mosquitoes were so vicious that by mile two even our local guides had asked to borrow our 100 percent deet. Bugs here suck down lesser repellent like an aperitif. Nothing provides complete protection.

Our destination is La Danta, one of the largest pyramids on earth. It’s located in the ruins of El Mirador, a centerpiece of Maya civilization from 800 B.C.E. to 100 C.E. that was abandoned nearly 2,000 years ago. There are no restrooms, no gift shops. In fact, the site is still being excavated.

This is where Angela and Suley want to get married. So, accompanied by a pair of guides, a half-dozen pack donkeys, and their ten toughest (or least informed) friends, the brides are determined to march us 60 miles over five days through Parque Nacional El Mirador in northern Guatemala to La Danta to say “I do.” It’s our second night on the trail.

I close my eyes and wait for Tara, a.k.a. Tent Dawg, to start snoring. I met her 48 hours ago. Broad shouldered and sharp jawed, she looks like she could win a car-tossing competition or spit and hit Mars. A major in the U.S. Army, she’s been training soldiers on how to survive in the field since before Survivor was a tiki torch in Mark Burnett’s eye. Back in the small town of Flores, the night before we all set off, she’d said something about a kidney condition with a shrug. Nothing fazes Tent Dawg.

I slip out of our nylon cocoon to pee, swimming through the liquid night. Humidity 83 percent. Cicadas buzz from thick-vined shadows—the jungle’s 24-hour booty call.

The misshapen moon shimmers like a mirage. I drop my underwear and flash a rounder moon at the donkeys. A languid tail whips a fly. Because my body temperature nearly matches the outer world, it’s hard to feel the boundary line. So I watch to be sure the piss is pissing. At least it runs clear; I’ve been pounding water to replenish the gallon I sweat off every hour.

No sound emerges from our five tents, just green-black humming in all directions, 1.6 million acres of primeval rainforest teeming with the richest biodiversity in Central America. I shake my hips, pull up my skivvies, and float back to my tent.

I flop down and remind myself, This is the opportunity of a lifetime, when a mosquito the size of a Winnebago chomps my left butt cheek. The pain is electric but passes quickly. After frantic swatting and cursing, I drift off, anesthetized by this single dart.

It was not a mosquito.

Four months before this trip, in April of 2017, I sat in a collapsible chair at a campsite in Joshua Tree, California, avoiding eye contact with the breakfast of sardines I had to force down.

“Yes!” I said, before Angela finished her question.

I’d met her years ago when she was a subject in a documentary film I’d directed, and we became friends. An Arab-American medic in the Army, Angela met Suley, a Mexican-American enlistee, and couldn’t resist her thousand-watt smile. Despite the recent repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, the policy had left its scars. The military still didn’t feel like a safe place for their love. Although Angela had once dreamed of being a lifer, she quit and Suley followed suit. They launched new careers and big plans for life as wife and wife.

As Joshua Tree’s cold March winds blew dust around our campfire, I swaddled Angela and Suley’s drowsy Chihuahua inside my parka, keeping us both warm. They told me they planned to marry in Guatemala—something about the Maya ruins, a handpicked crew, almost all women, did I want to come along?

I didn’t want details, I just wanted in.

I was a single 39-year-old living and working in Los Angeles, freelance-writing and making films, and my life felt rife with uncertainty. This trip offered a chance to grab on to the one thing I knew about myself. I’d ascended the peaks of the High Sierra, explored the bowels of the Grand Canyon, and snow-camped across north-central Colorado’s Gore Range. My future was a cloudy mess, but I knew this: I am an adventurer.

To be clear, I am not a fearless adventurer—I’m paranoid about viruses and parasites, and have a phobia of ticks. Growing up in Syracuse, New York, a hotbed for Lyme disease, didn’t help. Anything insidious or invisible is my enemy. Give me something I can see and fight, not a freeloader sucking out my life force. (Yes, I have low-grade OCD and watched Alien at an impressionable age.)

But at this moment I wanted to say yes and feel grand for saying it. I’d fallen out of trekking shape; I needed to prove that I still had the stuff. There would be plenty of time for fear. I am the kind of person who says yes.

Had I been listening, I would’ve heard that almost everyone on the trip was professionally fit and ten years younger than me: a soldier, a martial artist, two physical therapists, and several fitness instructors. My regimen of strolls on Venice Beach and Sunday morning flop yoga wouldn’t cut it with this crowd.

Had I been listening, I would’ve heard Angela describe her dream wedding: “A super-trek to a remote destination that we all barely survive but bonds us forever—like how Suley and I met in the Army!”

Had I been listening, perhaps I would’ve said no. Instead, the conversation turned to breakfast. Angela gestured to my sardines. “They’re not so bad if you hide them in the eggs,” she said. The Chihuahua squirmed against my belly.

I peeled back the tin and threw another oily stinker onto the campfire skillet. As it popped and sizzled, I heaved a spoonful of orange whitefish roe into my mouth. Just get it done.

I was choking down sardines and roe at the behest of my acupuncturist. He said that this diet would help prepare my body for the harvest of my own eggs a few weeks later, and I’d learned not to question his methods. (At least it wasn’t the encapsulated deer placenta this time.)

I wanted a sexy adventure buddy and a safe, reliable co-parent to have children with, but he hadn’t appeared yet. Refusing to settle for the wrong guy had felt plucky at 23, but at 39 seemed more like a game of chicken with the universe. Freezing my eggs stretched out the road a bit longer, but it might be for nothing.

A fertility clinic is the one place in Los Angeles where you can’t hide from the realities of aging. I’d never felt less in control as I dropped ten thousand hard-earned freelancer bucks to take my best shot at having a baby. I’d have eaten the sardine can itself if the doctor suggested it.

When I returned to Los Angeles from Joshua Tree, I shot up my abdomen with expensive medicine for several weeks leading up to the egg-retrieval procedure. I didn’t have a partner to help me prep the injection site or hold my hand as I stabbed the dripping needles into my subcutaneous fat. My only companion was the paid model in the injection tutorial video produced by the medicine’s manufacturer. Night after night, I’d mimic her manicured hands—long after I’d memorized the steps.

A month before Guatemala, with my eggs successfully retrieved and on ice, I sat across from a travel-medicine doctor in Santa Monica. She’d already vaccinated me for dengue fever, hepatitis A, and tetanus, and given me a bottle of Malarone to ward off malaria. I filled out a form detailing my history with giardia, a parasite in contaminated drinking water that causes diarrhea, exhaustion, and, in my case, so much weight loss that my college basketball coach worried I’d become anorexic. I’d caught it five times on wilderness treks, even when no one else did. “I don’t know what to tell you,” she said. “I guess bugs just like you.”

“What about ticks?” I said. “Do ticks in Guatemala carry Lyme disease?”

“Honey, they got something, ” she said. She handed me a prescription for a single doxycycline pill the size of a baguette. “Anything bites you, take this. No hospitals in the jungle. And get the best tweezers you can find.”

I stopped at a drugstore on the way home.

I open my eyes in the misty jungle dawn, grateful to have dozed a handful of hours. Tent Dawg continues her Darth Vader breathing, perhaps dreaming of rappelling from a helicopter or choking out a python. I sit up and listen, hearing only the guttural wail of a howler monkey declaring his territory. The other tents are still.

I start to lie back down, but a tight sensation between my legs grabs my attention.

I face away from Tent Dawg, cross-legged, and peel off my underwear to inspect. Nothing. But what is that ache? I pull my right labia aside and my field of vision snaps into a tunnel.

Behold my nightmare: a tick has bitten my vagina.

The predator is massive—the size of a pencil eraser—with a revolting blood-brown shell and mandibles that rival Jaws.

A dizzying heat rushes to my face. I feel the urge to tip headfirst into an imaginary hole. A voice from some deep place rises. We’ve trained for this, Johnson.

I grit my teeth and pull out a brand-new pair of Mr. Tweezermans—excuse me, Dr. Tweezermans—from my pack. I flip on my phone’s flashlight and assume the butterfly position.

The good part about being bit by a jungle-grade arachnid on the lady taco is that the folds of the labia make it hard for the little jerk to get traction. I spread my labia with my left hand, slit my eyes, and dive into surgery.

The creature squirms and plunges for deeper velvet, legs in blind fury, cruel mouth desperate for flesh. But my wrath will not be evaded. Not today. I grasp its beady head with a firm hand and yank up once, exorcizing the demon from my holy garden.

“Fuck you,” I hiss. I dump it into a plastic sandwich bag and smash out its guts with a rock. I swallow the enormous antibiotic pill in one gulp.

Tent Dawg wakes up, fresh as springtime.

“I’ve had a negative life experience,” I say.

She rolls over and I relay the ordeal with the gravitas of Obi-Wan Kenobi describing the destruction of planet Alderaan.

She bursts out laughing. I decide I hate Tent Dawg.

At breakfast I am, perhaps, a little unhinged.

“I just want everyone to know that I was bitten by a tick on the vagina,” I announce.

The group looks up with full cheeks and wide eyes. Ashley, a bubbly blond yogini who weighs as much as my left leg, offers me tea tree oil from her stash. I splash on so much that it feels like my undercarriage has been power-washed with Listerine. I thank her for this kindness.

Angela pulls me aside. “Hey look,” she says, “If you don’t want to go on with us, I totally get it. That sucks. One of the guides can take you back.”

Just say yes and this will be over. But her tone is so compassionate, so ready to let me off the hook from this hellish trip, that it soothes me out of my tantrum.

The tick is dead. I took the pill. I’ll be fine.

I slap gaiters over my hiking boots and we single-file out of camp for eight more miles through the bush.

Another breathless dawn sags over our heads on the third day, but I feel light in a way I haven’t since I boarded the plane at LAX. No matter what else happens, we’ve made it to El Mirador. Now we just need to climb the La Danta pyramid and pull off a secret wedding.

A moment before we leave camp, Suley decides she needs a pre-wedding beauty treatment. She plops on a stump, douses her hair with a water bottle, and shakes off the excess. Ashley uses the tiny pair of scissors from the med kit as Angela brushes bits of hair from her beloved’s shoulders. “Look how prepared I am,” Suley says, showing off her underwear waistband, which says: TUESDAY. Today is Tuesday. Angela smiles. It’s time to go.

I think we’re climbing over natural ridges and hummocks to get to the La Danta pyramid, crown jewel of El Mirador, but our guides, Alejandro and Luis, explain that we’re actually climbing over the half-digested bones of a capital city that would take lifetimes to unearth. With an estimated population of 200,000 at its height during the third century B.C.E., El Mirador was the nerve center of a densely settled network of towns and villages. But the city declined and was largely abandoned in the first century C.E.

This collapse didn’t mean the end of the Maya. But it did mark a low point for civilization in the region. Why did so many of its inhabitants abandon this place, never to return? Warfare? Shifting trade routes? Alien invasion? Richard Hansen, an archaeologist who has conducted research in northern Guatemala for over four decades, points to drought and deforestation as the culprits. Over millennia, the jungle swallowed this once mighty metropolis—no small lesson for a group of Americans about the fate of a society whose power outstrips its wisdom.

Despite aching feet, sopping armpits, and a blossoming case of jungle butt (think adult diaper rash), adrenaline inflates my lungs as we approach the massive pyramid, which is easy to mistake for a sleeping volcano in the canopy.

Angela asks Alejandro and Luis if we can spend a few minutes alone atop La Danta for a period of “quiet meditation,” and they hang back. Although the Maya were no strangers to homosexuality and may have incorporated it in some shamanic rituals, things changed when the Catholic Spaniards arrived in the 1500s. Gay marriage is not recognized in Guatemala today. A gay man and two trans women were killed in a single week during Pride Month in 2021, and at least 19 LGBTQ+ people were murdered in 2020. Alejandro and Luis seem cool, but Angela can’t risk complete honesty. (Also, I’ve changed the guides’ names lest they suffer consequences for being party to our expedition.)

So why choose this spot for their wedding—somewhere that neither woman has personal ties to, in a country hostile to their love?

“I know there were gay people in these communities,” Angela says. “I can’t quite explain it, but I feel connected to them. I don’t want to be disrespectful; I hope the Maya spirits understand.”

Besides, neutral ground doesn’t exist for Angela and Suley. When they announced their engagement back in the States, members of their families cried—and not in the happy way. Despite getting their marriage license in California, the couple didn’t feel safe having a public wedding during the first year of the Trump administration. Choosing peak rainy season has assured them of precious privacy. We have not seen, nor will we see, another tourist the entire week. This is what a history of trauma yields. When you’ve been forbidden to be yourself for so long, a lost city feels like home.

We approach a rickety wooden staircase scaffolded onto the side of the pyramid. Two hundred and thirty-six feet to the top. Lacquered with sweat, I grab at the skeletal railing to hoist myself up platform after platform. My ego refuses to be left behind by my younger, fitter comrades. So what if my lungs explode? The sun beats down upon my pale body as I squint and adjust my hat and sunglasses against its full equatorial force.

We spill out on top of the pyramid and dump our daypacks into the shade of a single tree. The rough slab is the size of a modest backyard deck, with nubs of ancient steps on one side and a simple wooden railing to prevent falls on the other.

We’re standing on sacred ground. No one speaks. Our guides had told us that in the midst of the Maya’s environmental crisis, they had sacrificed everyone from babies to nobility up here—a futile attempt to appease gods for human errors. I’ll later learn that there’s no evidence of human sacrifice in Maya rituals until centuries later. But right now the story of spilled blood feels true.

Looking out, it’s hard to imagine a bustling city or the degraded landscape that followed. All I can see, all anyone can pay attention to, is the great green ocean roiling to the horizon.

The brides slip identical crisp white shirts over grizzled hiking pants and straighten their sweat-soaked bandanas. Joby, a mountain-biking med student, steps upon a rock-cum-pulpit and pulls her hair into a bun to officiate. Tent Dawg, the ring bearer, assumes her post with military posture.

Suley stumbles over her opening lines. Angela takes her hands. These two souls, so full of passion and conviction, choose their own holy words and cast a spell over their future. I have never felt anything close to the bond these women share. Merging with another person requires a kind of faith I’ve distrusted and resisted. But this altar was made for transformation.

The midday sun kindles the white of their shirts into incandescence. I am the weightless reflection of this glow. My body, dearest friend and burden on this journey, appears to have gone missing. In its place the jungle buzzes—a cacophony of life in every direction, vibrating with its inescapable, insatiable, many-mouthed maw, the sound of life’s deep yearning for more. I am that yearning. For to witness love like this and bless it amid the primordial is to be absorbed. To become part of it.

When I feel my body again, I realize I can’t stop smiling. Life to life, creature to creature, the buzz bounces and refracts and compounds everything in its wake with an intoxicating hunger that hits like joy.

After the ceremony, hugs, and a thousand photos taken from every angle, we notice dark clouds rolling in from the west. Rather than climb down, we stand our ground in the stultifying haze. Not even a leaf moves. As the tallest person on the highest promontory, I should be worried about the approaching veins of lightning—but the ceremony has left me invincible. I raise my aluminum hiking pole in defiance. Lightning could no more strike me down than it could shatter the whole of La Danta.

Moments later, when the heavens wash our stinking, ecstatic bodies clean, we shout like children who’ve known no greater pleasure. Then, having dumped its violent bounty upon us, the sky moves on.

In a final touch of magic, when we make it back to camp, we find that our guides have decorated a long table with a plastic, fruit-patterned tablecloth. It feels like the Ritz-Carlton. Alejandro and Luis present us with a pineapple upside-down cake and a magnum of Ron Botran.

My eyes widen and find Angela’s with the same question. Do they know about the wedding? But no. Today is Tent Dawg’s birthday, and they wanted to surprise us. The air dissolves into toasts and merriment while the red sun sinks below the horizon. I gorge my body with sugar and caramel-vanilla rum, offering a small blood sacrifice to the mosquitoes who float like spirits above the feast.

On the last morning, I wake up cocky and hungover, and vote to take the shortcut back. Everyone agrees. Let’s abandon the trail and beeline to Carmelita for an early lunch! The jungle isn’t so terrifying after all. We’ve tamed it.

We haven’t tamed shit. Two hours later, our progress slows to a crawl. I follow Alejandro, who slashes his machete against the interminable, intestinal green at every step. Rainy season has yielded super-growth that he didn’t anticipate. The leaves are so enormous, I imagine curling into one to serve myself up as a spring roll for whatever hungry giant patrols this ramble.

No wonder people get lost and die in this park. Angela tells me that Alejandro saved Luis’s life out here years ago. That’s how they met. My stomach flutters.

We pick our way through swamps that stink of death and sulfur. A gang of monkeys hurl branches at us from a tree. I spy a scorpion two feet from my toe and lunge past it. A fer-de-lance, notorious rainforest serpent, pokes its venomous yellow chin out of the muck and I stop breathing. Or is it a vine? No matter, press on.

Thick mud paints my purple gaiters gray; I look like I’m walking on concrete stilts. I use my hiking poles to peel pancakes off the bottom of my boots every 15 minutes.

Trying to enliven the mood, ever sunny Suley interviews Diana with her GoPro. “So,” she chirps, “what did you learn in the jungle?”

“It doesn’t matter what percent deet you use, the mosquitoes still bite you.” Diana has a bite on her eyeball.

Suley turns to Joby. “What did you learn in the jungle?”

“Don’t go in the jungle,” Joby deadpans.

Luis assures us there’s only a mile or two left. “Twenty more minutes!”

Twenty minutes pass. A dour silence falls.

Estela’s knee gives out. Tent Dawg, suffering a nasty bout of trench foot, shuffles like a zombie, but she insists that Estela ride the donkey. None of us yet know that Tent Dawg is also suffering from gout and renal failure precipitated by our salty diet and dehydration.

“Twenty more minutes!” Luis says.

By hour five, everyone stops talking. The only sound is our sludgy trudge and the rhythmic whack of the machete. By hour six, I stop thinking. My quads and calves scream and fire on autopilot. Bugs can’t get traction on my skin, glazed in a slime of sweat, sunscreen, and deet. No mind. Only motion.

One foot in front of the other. Keep going. Another sardine on the skillet. Another date. Another injection. Mimic the manicured hands. Don’t stop. Left foot, right foot, left foot.

Hours (or minutes?) later, our troop lands on a rare dry patch of dirt. Bodies bend over knees. Hands clasp the backs of heads. Lungs suck and exhale.

Alejandro slices a bamboo cane and guzzles water from its hollow core, then offers it to me. Even he looks cooked. Tent Dawg is dead last. Her soaked shirt slings from the angles of her frame. Her face glows with a ghostly yellow tint.

Luis, shirt off, smile forced, can’t resist. “Only 20 more minutes!”

Rage boils up my throat, but before it can release, Ashley, our gummy bear of light and positivity, beats me to it. She wheels on the group with bulging eyes and clenched fists and screams, “You can’t do this to people!” followed by a shriek that would appall a howler monkey.

Who is she yelling at? Luis? Angela and Suley for bringing her? Perhaps she’s yelling at the jungle itself. But the jungle can do whatever it wants to people. As far as the ticks and the scorpions and the fer-de-lance are concerned, we’re just another soft-skinned mammal. Another body to swallow in the mud. Another city to devour.

I dart my eyes away from Angela’s and choke back a giggle. Someone snorts and tries to cover it with a cough. I stare at the ground, but it’s too much. The group erupts into laughter. Resistance is futile. Resistance is suffering. The jungle will eat you. So be eaten.

My future is a cloudy mess but I know this: I am an adventurer. And an adventurer is someone who surrenders to the unknown even when it’s uncomfortable, even when it’s horrible, because once you’ve been absorbed, nothing else will do.

When we set forth this time I feel a new sense of calm. It is only 20 minutes before we happen upon a small bright clearing and turn right to see beautiful Carmelita with its rusty corrugated roofs, dirt roads, and a single horse in a pasture. We have been released.

The group’s mood soars into blue skies—hugging, singing. Blood rushes to my head and washes the backs of my knees, down my stiff calves, and between my toes.

After cervezas and enchiladas prepared at Alejandro’s home by his wife and daughters, we pile our smelly bodies into a passenger van and head off for Flores. I sit shotgun and hold the muscles of my thighs. Thank you, thank you. The jungle whips past my window at impossible speed.

Suley taps my shoulder from the seat behind and points her GoPro at me. My hair is wild and my face is dirty. I’m proud of looking this bad. I tell the camera, “I just feel alive.”

I’m a thousand feet high and flying in this magical old van. I am La Danta, and the roiling green ocean, and the scorpion lurking in the muck. I am a tick on the cosmic vagina. I do not fear not finding love or missing out on motherhood. There’s nothing I cannot do in this life.

It will be a few days before the giardia sets in.

Melissa Johnson ( @highhip ) is a writer and filmmaker in Los Angeles. She had a baby girl in March.

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The Lion Wedding: A Short Moral Story

Short stories with animal characters are interesting to young readers. They love to read these stories and find hidden moral messages.

This story is about judging people from their appearance.

It explains why we should look deeper into a person’s character.

The Story of The Lion’s Wedding

This is a story of a lion and his wedding. He invited all the animals but no one showed up. He was a gentle lion and wondered why the animals he invited did not come to his wedding. What did the animals think of the lion? Why did they not come to his wedding? Find out by reading this interesting moral story.

The Lion and other Animals

Once there was a huge jungle. Many wild animals lived there. Everyone was afraid of the lion. He was the only lion in that jungle.

The elephants were afraid of the lion and never let their calves stray near his den. The bears always made sure that their cubs were inside the den in the evening. It was the time when the lion went outside for a walk.

The lion was huge and fierce but he was very gentle. It was his appearance that intimidated all the other animals in the jungle.

The Gentle Lion

The Lion’s Wedding

The lion did not have a clue of what the other animals in the jungle thought of him. He was young and energetic. One day, he thought of his marriage. He was an adult and wanted to settle down.

He found a beautiful lioness in the other jungle and fixed his marriage. He was so happy that he invited all the other animals.

He went to the elephants and said, “I am inviting you all to my wedding. Please be there with your friends and family.” The elephants stammered and agreed.

He went to the bears and said, “Friends, I am marrying my love. Please come to my wedding. I will be glad if you gather sweet honey for all the animals.” The bears agreed to what he said.

He then went to the monkeys and said, “Monkeys please join the other animals on my wedding day. You dance well. Please be there to entertain the other animals.” The monkeys were scared but agreed.

The Wedding Day

The wedding day finally arrived. The lion and lioness were happy. They have made all the arrangements and decorations. They were happy to finally meet all the animals.

To their surprise, the whole day was gone but nobody arrived. There was no one at the wedding. It made the lion and lioness sad.

The Lion and Lioness Were Sad

The Next Day

The next day, the monkeys asked the elephants, “Did you all go to the wedding?”

The elephants said, “We were so afraid of him. We did not go! What about you?”

The monkeys replied, “We are afraid of him too. How can we dance if we are afraid of him?”

The bears added, “We were unable to arrange honey for all the animals. We feared that he would kill us. That is why we did not attend the wedding.”

All the animals confessed that no one went to the wedding because of the lion’s fierce appearance.

The lion, on the other hand, realised that the animals were scared of him.

Moral of the Wedding Story of the Lion

The moral of this edition of Lion Wedding Stories in English is not to judge a book by its cover. We should not judge others by their appearance. We need to consider and understand what is inside a person.

Tips for Parents

Explain the story of Lion Wedding for Kids and elaborate on the life lesson hidden in it. Describe how the animals should have considered the lion’s true nature. Explain why the animals were afraid. Encourage children to read the Lion and Monkey story with moral lessons.

FAQs on The Lion Wedding: A Short Moral Story

1. Why did the animals not attend the wedding of the lion?

The animals thought about how they can share their happiness if they are afraid of the lion.

2. Why did the bears not attend the wedding?

They were afraid of the lion and were unable to collect honey. They thought the lion would not be happy with this and might harm them.

3. Why was the lion sad?

The lion was sad because all the animals misjudged his character. They did not consider that a lion can be gentle and kind.

Upton Sinclair

• Literature Notes
• About The Jungle
• Character List
• Summary and Analysis
• Character Analysis
• Introduction
• The Narrator
• Phil Connor
• Character Map
• Upton Sinclair Biography
• Critical Essays
• The Tenets of Sinclair's Socialism
• Jurgis' Journey through Hell to Socialism
• Sinclair's The Jungle from a Contemporary Critical Perspective
• Full Glossary for The Jungle
• Essay Questions
• Practice Projects
• Cite this Literature Note

Summary and Analysis Chapter 1

The Jungle begins on the wedding day of two Lithuanian immigrants, Jurgis and Ona, highlighting many of the traditional Lithuanian customs that family members like Marija and Teta Elzbieta attempt to keep alive now that they live in Chicago. Jurgis and Ona have had to wait a long time after immigrating to the United States and settling in Chicago for their wedding to occur due to the economic hardships they've suffered. These hardships are laid out in Chapter 2, as the book continues in a flashback to before the time they met in Lithuania. The flashback continues until Chapter 7 of the book, where the story catches up to the wedding of Jurgis and Ona. Although many people are getting their fill of food and drink, a majority of the guests aren't fulfilling their end of the unwritten agreement to give a gift of money, and the bride and groom don't receive enough funds to start their married life together. In fact, they aren't receiving enough money even to pay for the reception, though, following the Old World tradition, no guest will be turned away. Jurgis, the protagonist, attempts to accept responsibility for this situation by declaring, "I will work harder."

Upton Sinclair opens his novel in media res — in the middle of the action — capturing the variety of emotions that surround every wedding day. Marija's barking at the carriage driver not only reveals her temperament and provides a glimpse of her strength of character; it also allows Sinclair to provide some history for his characters as well as providing the setting for the entire text. Marija is one of many immigrants who now call Chicago home, and with whom the book is concerned.

Most of the action takes place in Chicago at the turn of the century. The stockyards play a pivotal role, serving as both setting and character. As the setting, the stockyards capture a time and place — the meat packing industry at the turn of the century. The stockyards can be considered a character due to the influence and effect they have on Jurgis and his family. Sinclair develops the stockyards — through physical description, the comments of other characters, and direct commentary — more than any other character in The Jungle .

At the wedding feast, a variety of attitudes about life in America are revealed. The most important one comes from Dede Antanas (Grandfather Anthony) who "has been only six months in America," yet his toast to the newly married couple is pessimistic, revealing his disillusionment with America.

Sinclair uses information he supplies about one character to reveal important information about many characters. For example, Ona, the bride, is small and dependent. Her physical description prepares readers for the difficulties she faces in Chicago and enables readers to understand why Jurgis feels a need to protect her.

In opposition to Ona is her cousin, Marija, who is strong and concerned about appearances. Marija runs the entire wedding, and her emphasis on doing what is proper and right serves as a dark contrast to the woman she will become. From the onset, readers view Marija as a vigorous woman, a survivor.

Other characters at the wedding serve as glimpses of both the present and the future: The elderly stubbornly cling to Lithuanian customs while the young disregard tradition. References are made to children scavenging the dump for chicken food. The saloonkeepers are cheating the families, and the families begrudgingly accept the swindling because the barmen have connections with the politicians. Some workers are unemployed because of blood poisoning. No workers, not even the bride or groom, are able to take a day off from their jobs. Other couples cannot marry for lack of money. Although the wedding feast is a time for celebration, it is only one day out of a dreary existence for all who live in Packingtown.

Sinclair introduces Jurgis, the main character, almost in an aside. Not much is revealed about the man, although he is described as a "hunted animal." Animal imagery plays a significant part throughout the development of characters and themes in The Jungle , as are the last words of the chapter, "I will work harder." These words characterize Jurgis; however, many times when things are out of his control, so it doesn't matter how hard he works, he still may not succeed.

Stylistically, the narrative structure of The Jungle bothers some readers because Sinclair uses an all-knowing narrator. Sinclair used this form for a variety of reasons. First of all, The Jungle , like most novels of this time period, was originally published in serial form, and this type of narrative functions well in that particular format: Having a narrative voice outside the story to relate the action makes it easier for readers to follow the installments. Readers who don't appreciate this style do not typically enjoy early (Victorian) novels because the extensive narrative intrusions are bothersome to those who enjoy modern novels. Sinclair also desired to show life as he believed it really existed; therefore, his realistic fiction not only illustrates the real world, it attempts to capture the readers' attention by presenting characters who seemingly have genuine lives separate from the text. The narrator talks about what characters say, think, and do. Most contemporary novels are told from a particular character's point of view, allowing readers some internal insight, which is why many contemporary readers resist novels where a narrator "tells" what happens instead of "showing" the reader what happens.

Other readers are bothered by Sinclair's use of the second person "you." For example, when he discusses the payment of the bar tab, he writes, "You might complain." Sinclair uses "you" in the plural, "you all" form, to connect the reader to both the character and the situation. In addition to shifting from the third to the second person point of view, Sinclair also shifts from past to present tense, and this technique disturbs the unity of time and place while confusing some readers. Most critics concur that the time shifting is a result of hasty writing rather than for any literary purpose.

The problems the family faces at their reception in the New World mirror the problems they encounter in their new lives in America. The focal point of The Jungle is the plight of the immigrants. A major part of the problem is the excessive amount of graft and corruption in Packingtown. So many problems exist for the immigrants that the excitement of the wedding changes to trepidation about the next working day — just as their excitement about the New World has changed from optimism to pessimism.

Throughout The Jungle Sinclair explores how heredity, environment, and background all shape fate. The lower class is trapped by the very nature of capitalism. Sinclair contrasts Lithuania, where the characters were healthier and happier to where they are now, downtrodden and desperate in the slums of Chicago.

The meaning of foreign words and phrases are revealed through context, providing a sense of authenticity while simultaneously making the immigrants sympathetic to readers. Sinclair needs to have sympathetic characters in order to demonstrate how capitalism destroys them and their families; by presenting capitalism as the problem, he is able to present socialism as the solution. His novel is filled with contrasts; for example, from the onset capitalism is dishonest, a direct contrast to the honest, hard workers. In the first chapter of The Jungle , only the slightest hints of Sinclair's agenda are present; however, the predators of capitalism are immediately exposed, as are their prey — the working poor.

personage a person of importance or distinction.

veselija the Lithuanian wedding celebration which includes but is not limited to traditional foods, dances, and behaviors.

viands food of various kinds; especially, choice dishes

caper to skip or jump about in a playful manner.

swain a young rustic lover.

grandes dames women, especially older ones, of great dignity or prestige.

quaff to drink deeply in a hearty or thirsty way.

Faust the hero of several medieval legends and later literary and operatic works, a philosopher who sells his soul to the devil in exchange for knowledge and power; here, and in several places throughout The Jungle , Sinclair inserts literary allusions that are not compatible with the educational level of the character, a stylistic shortcoming.

ponas Lithuanian word meaning master, gentleman.

brass check refers to the style of time clock used during this period.

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Wedding Of The Lion

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THE LION'S WEDDING

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CHAPTER ONE Jungle Wedding Stories By JOSEPH CLARK W. W. Norton & Company Read the Review Jungle Wedding WE FLY AT NIGHT out of New York on a small chartered jet, some ancient but refurbished DC-8 that lumbers down the runway and struggles for lift. There are worried faces on the crammed-in wedding party, people mouthing silent prayers, some mumbled chants and not a small number of people clutching crystals hanging from their necks. My girlfriend Gwyn holds my hand until we've reached cruising altitude. Most of these people are her friends and acquaintances, strange people who follow alternative gods and goddesses, shamans, and aliens-among-us theories. The woman who organized this wedding, Louise Sanderson, had seen my video at the Whitney Biennial show and told Gwyn I had a "very primal, pagan touch." She called me and sounded a little like Bette Davis on the phone, a 1930s upper-crust New York accent, a no-nonsense voice with a hint of sardonic wit. She said that she wanted a " video artist " to tape a celebration she was organizing, a very special and unusual celebration to take place in a location she was not willing to disclose. She needed someone who would be able to "capture the essence of what we are all about." She said " video artist " as if she were saying "automotive technician."     "I'll pay you a flat fifty-thousand-dollar fee, amenities included," she said, not waiting for my answer. "Tomorrow morning someone will stop round with the contracts."     A long silence passed until I snapped out of it and said, "Yes. I'll be here. Thank you ... um--" the phone went dead. Fifty thousand dollars is an awful lot of money just to tape a wedding and I don't tape weddings. I'm an artist who uses film and video tape to create "moving canvases." The Art in America review of the Whitney Biennial described my work as "certainly disturbing: whatever meaning can be discovered in these works is buried beneath layer upon layer of howling dogs, defecation noises, cockfight outtakes and mock-porno `acting' sequences. Perhaps after this critic is long buried such work will pass into the lexicon of what we now call `painting.' At their best they are blatantly primal and pagan--self-aggrandizement bordering on narcissism" That review resulted in my first sold-out show and boosted video sales.     "Who is she?" I asked Gwyn.     "You met her. Blaine's solstice party, remember? You asked me about her."     "Seemed a little haughty and bitchy to me."     "I thought you were attracted to that?" She's smirking.     I did remember Louise Sanderson: her ineffable projection of power, a crackling certainty in the way she possessed a room as soon as she entered it. I couldn't take my eyes off her all night. Gwyn showed me a spread in Elle Decor , interior shots of Louise Sanderson's two-floor co-op apartment overlooking Central Park, a romantic otherworldly, tree-topped version of life in New York.     I read over the contract as the waiting courier fidgeted. An invitation and a timetable were attached, but still no announced destination. It was a short itinerary with few details--where to meet the plane and when we were to return to New York. "Wear tropical clothing and be prepared for insects," the note said. A small Post-it note added, "Please use your discretion in completing this project. I leave it up to you to edit the document as your artistic sensibilities seem fit." It was signed LS in a tight but florid scrawl. I signed in the marked places and slipped the first-half payment check for twenty-five thousand out from beneath the paper clip. After the courier left, I read the fine print; the contract stipulated that I could not make dubs of the tapes for my portfolio nor talk to any member of the press about anything I would see or hear. I would be sued into submission if I failed to live up to this contract. I should have demanded copyright, I realized, but I decided I would make dubs anyway. Edit document as your artistic sensibilities see fit , is what she wrote. As far as I'm concerned that is an open-ended contract, without limitations. THE FIVE-HOUR FLIGHT is uneventful, Gwyn passes out as soon as we've reached thirty thousand feet, her hand going limp in mine. She's excited about the mystery of an unknown destination and talking about the sort of wedding we might have, a jokey, just kidding conversation that always leaves me wanting cubits of fresh air and a long, solitary walk. Gwyn has always been into alternative ways of looking at the world. She has acupuncture and exotic massages, mixes up foul-smelling tinctures and makes tea from raw herbs. These remedies work even on extreme skeptics such as myself.     Many of the people on this plane she met at her yoga class. They live in owner-occupied, single-family brownstones in the Village and the Upper East Side. Their dinner parties often end with interminable drumming circles and group massages or mindless chanting to some recently invented pagan goddess. I think of this crowd as a little sloppy. I find their thinking without any theoretical or scientific basis. IT'S FIVE-THIRTY LOCAL TIME when the captain announces our descent into a fog-covered Puerto Verde. The landing is perfect despite the fog and we taxi toward the tower where we are met by military jeeps, armored personnel carriers, and a fleet of armored black Chevy Blazers whose headlights show dimly through the predawn fog. The air on the exit ramp is sentient, thick with smoke and diesel fumes. I am first out of the plane, ready with my camera as the others descend. When I point the camera at Gwyn she shifts into runway swagger. Maybe it's the presence of the carpet or the long straight walkway and the diamond white light, but she's pouring it on, twisting her body and swaggering through the gauntlet of soldiers waiting at the bottom of the ramp. The soldiers are all shorter than the women getting off the plane. The officers in charge lean their heads together and whisper when they see me moving toward them with the camera on my shoulder.     Louise Sanderson gets off last; walking slowly down the gangplank, she gives a little movie star wave, then adds a little wink meant just for me. My friend at the Times says that it's prewar Texas oil money that gives her all that autonomy and power. This security must have been expensive, but Gwyn says that Louise has friends in the State Department. The man welcoming Louise at the bottom of the steps looks professorial and anemic, not at all like a general or secret operative. Whoever he is, he's not an ambassador. There won't be any high government officials meeting this bunch of Americans. This event is not officially taking place, though I am already busy documenting it.     The airport road is encased in reinforced concrete like a California riverbed. Contained and protected from view, this fortified bridge is without a breakdown lane, no stop signs or speed markers. Fires burn on the horizon. We come to an elevated section of roadway and spread out as far as the eye can see are shacks of a half million or more people. The entire circumference is devastation and ruin, a shanty encampment after a natural disaster--maybe an earthquake or hurricane. The phrase, " indigenous population never recovered ." Nothing on the horizon is over ten feet tall, a vast plain of cardboard and tin houses, plastic sheeting nailed to scrap wood, old trucks and cars. Television antennas sprout from many of the makeshift houses. Groups of people huddle together around open fires. A helicopter gunship appears flying flanking maneuvers to our left. The faces on the ground turn toward the sound of the chopper expressing, not shock or wonder at the sight of this exotic bird, but terror. Some people run, others are numb and defiant, like the woman near the road who stands up and holds a baby out toward us. Her mouth is open and she's screaming something that makes the baby vibrate at the end of her arms. The baby is her only language, a symbol system reduced into this one tiny image being held aloft on its temporary signpost. The message remains oblique as they disappear in the roaring jump cut. THERE IS NO GRADUAL CHANGE as we enter the city. The rubble is built right up to and against the foundations of the high-rises and colonial buildings. The streets are empty of civilians. Bedraggled soldiers leaning against 50-caliber machine guns mounted on ancient jeeps watch over deserted intersections. Solid concrete walls topped with glass and razor wire surround every important building including the Buena Vista Intercontinental Hotel. The Blazers file into the underground parking garage at top speed, powering the brakes hard into the turns. More soldiers keep a wary eye on us until we've reached the private elevators. Gwyn and I get into an empty one and a man wearing an earphone holds the door as Louise hustles in carrying a kid leather Italian handbag. She smiles at Gwyn. "Hi darling," she says, and leans in to give her a tiny peck on the cheek. I sense Gwyn shudder and tense up. Louise nods in my direction. "Hello," she says, as if addressing the hired help. There is a tiny vibration on her upper lip, and the eye that is visible only to me winks again. She smiles, showing off porcelain work of the highest quality.     "Is there a civil war going on here?" I ask Louise as the elevator door closes.     "Not anymore," she says, putting her bag between her feet and moving errant hairs out of her face. "I believe this is how the rich protect themselves from the poor." She gives her head a shake, and the growl in her voice makes me laugh out loud. Her invitation is as brash as it is subtle. Gwyn looks at me surprised.     "Louise" I ask, "I was wondering whether or not we might discuss this project some more. I'd like a clearer idea what events you want me to record."     "Record them all, starting now"     "But I mean is there some format you prefer, some point of view you want in particular?"     "Nothing in particular," she says. "Just do your normal Whitney Museum thing." She's clearly taunting me.     "I think we should get together and talk this through."     "How about tonight? I'm free after ten-thirty. Come up to suite eleven-thirty-four, and bring one of your cameras along. You two get some rest, now," she says. "You won't be getting much sleep in the next two days." She addresses the comment directly to me. She expects me to work hard for my big check.     Gwyn and I wander around our huge suite of five rooms, a well-preserved museum of International Style Americana, circa 1964. The furniture is modernist airport lounge--lowback and no-back couches, chairs covered in orange and green and purple pastels, wall-size built-in fish tanks, a fold-out stereo console with aerodynamic styling. The rooms are like intact 1964 World's Fair exhibits sold prefab to small countries impatient for the great leap forward. Judging by all the satellite dishes I saw in this part of the city I suspect they have already made the leap that matters. The windows are floor-to-ceiling and the fear of falling, of being terribly exposed, keeps us from the edges of the rooms except for brief moments. Below, buses weave past lone sentries standing guard at the intersections. The morning fog is starting to break up and I pull the curtains, thinking of snipers and government security forces with naval spotting scopes. This much security surely means the room is bugged, full of hidden cameras making low resolution tapes to be later enhanced for the colonel's entertainment.     "Why are you closing the curtains?" Gwyn asks. "Do you have something in mind?" I look at her curled up on the bed, the honey brown highlights of her hair exotic against the white satin sheets. Someone is probably watching her right this moment. Watching me watch her, the gringo bitch wanting to get fucked.     "Um, no, wasn't thinking about anything." I say, pacing the room and looking closely at the sprinklers, wall mirrors, and temperature control boxes for hidden pinhole eyes. She motions for me to sit on the bed next to her, but I continue to pace.     "What's gotten into you. You're nervous as a cat." I smile at her, amazed at how much I like being in her presence. I sit down on the bed and she strokes my arm and opens her white cotton bath towel to show me her breasts. How will they look in this light? Will the paused image flicker and be out-of-focus?     "Isn't it wonderful to be out of New York?" She sits up against the pile of pillows she's collected. "I feel like I get trapped there."     "We're in the Interzone now. I feel like I'm on a movie set. Don't lean too hard against the walls."     "The bed is real." She leans forward and bites my arm, nibbles her way into my neck and I feel a stirring. I roll on top of her and she opens her legs beneath me. "You must have gotten excellent shots this morning. It was beautiful with all that weird light and fog drifting through. Sounds like you might be pretty busy tomorrow.     "Just another rain forest wedding. Ritual sacrifice. Body branding. People will beat on drums. The world ends."     "P?" she says. "Try not to get too weird on me." I kiss her lips, feeling myself get hard against her pelvis bone. Damn the cameras. We'll show them how it's done in the American movies. AT DINNER NEW PEOPLE join the party in the banquet room. Tanned North American men wearing Italian linen suits and sandals. Hollywood types, groups of lesbians and gay men. Gwyn recognizes an actor. Sitcoms. Two soaps. Used to be in some science fiction cult but got out of it when he dropped his girlfriend. The actor is talking with a high-profile collector I've met. They wear the usual global trappings of the New Age, only here in this restricted and private space they've gone all out, with belly buttons pierced with amethyst and silver rings, brightly colored, flowing drawstring clothes, and nonmeat shoes. This is a trust fund culture filled with dropouts and wanna-be dropouts, a trickle-down theory wrapped in a liberal blanket. Everyone's glowing, hair on fire in the track lighting. These bodies have been astral-balanced, crystal-healed, rolfed, and acupunctured, all enhanced by super doses of blue-green algae capsules, indigenous herbal tinctures, and smuggled rain forest antioxidants.     The thing on my plate looks like burned octopus. The woman next to me in the buffet lines says, "No, it's charcoal-grilled wheat gluten on a bed of organic blue corn chips." Yum, yum.     I'm now officially the "camera guy." Hey camera guy, why don't you come over and film us? Are you supposed to be here? What show are you with? Get out of my face with that fucking thing! The camera guy in a documentary is the invisible force, a roving and neutral eye who creates a proscenium arch wherever he points. When they talk to me, trying to break down the wall that I want to keep between us, I find it agitating.     Gwyn waves to me from across the room, where she's part of a semicircle around Louise Sanderson. Then Louise waves me over and I'm finally introduced to the wedding party. There are four couples in all. Phil and Joe, from "a city on the West Coast," are immediately hostile to the presence of a camera but charmed by Louise as she tells them "everything has been arranged to insure the utmost privacy." Evonne and Baxter are both mid-forties statuesque and a little too willing to go before the camera. When I turn it off, they drift off and I hear him say in a stage whisper, "Mistress, can I be your bathroom this afternoon?"     Louise points out Teri and Lincoln, who look like ashram disciples, wearing identical yellow silk shirts and casual red drawstring pants. "Retired professors," Louise says with the hushed disdain some people might say "trailer trash" or "full scholarship." They are in their late fifties, without any discernible plastic surgery, and they cling to each other amid the glitz and glare and capped teeth. The last couple's names are Tab and Patricia. It is well into the introduction before I realize I'm talking to two women. Tab is frighteningly male and hilarious in a white tuxedo and leather loafers. "So, camera guy," Patrica says, "you aren't going to do anything nasty with this footage are you?"     I listen to a couple from Santa Fe describe their recent summer solstice party, the flamenco dancers they hired, and how much they love adobe. And how much higher the potential for spirituality really is in the desert of New Mexico. And how much they don't miss New York with all the noise and terror. "Uh-huh," I say, smiling, and tip down another bottle of Corona that clunks against the camera. I've set up the camera so that it's directly patched into another 8 mm editing deck. At any given moment, I can release my stock images and splice them into the mix. My favorites are the long sequence of lions fucking in some anonymous corner of the dusty savanna, a wooden tub full of blood sausage and human hands, some black and white grape stomping clips, and random orgasm clips from porno tapes. My normal Whitney Museum thing.     Gwyn is exhausted and falls asleep early. Suite 1134's door is open and I walk in with the camera on my shoulder.     "Oh, there you are," Louise says, noticing the camera. "Don't trip and hurt yourself."     "I'm concerned about the `no copies' clause." I say, trying the aggressive tactic.     "Relax," she says. "I bet you have everything in your house cataloged in alphabetical order."     "Actually, I do. Is the contract a subject I shouldn't bring up?"     "Darling, you're not relaxing at all and it's very unbecoming. Don't worry about the contract."     "So you really mean it, just do whatever I want to?"     "As I said, do your little Whitney Museum thing. Let yourself go." Her tone is decisive, and I put the camera down. "Are there any more questions, because it's getting late and I'd like to sleep."     Let yourself go , she says. Little does she know what I'm going to do with her wedding video. AFTER EATING BREAKFAST WE BOARD BUSES going to the jungle villages. The buses are matte black with steel covers protecting the tires and tinted windows covered with chain-link fencing material to guard against rocks and rocket-propelled grenades. We're escorted by another convoy of jeeps, APCs, and motorcycles. This is dearly an American operation because it is seamless and plush and full of an idiotic optimism. There are no surprise bribes or passport checks, no unexpected roadblocks or ambushes. Everything's been arranged, paid for, negotiated.     We head north, winding our way up thirty miles of switchbacks and cliff-side escarpments. We pass men and women on donkeys who are pushing sheep and goats back to the safety of their night shelters. Several times I spot men in the bushes with Kalashnikovs slung over their shoulders. We drive through villages so sleepy and abandoned that only the old are present and they all seem to be asleep in the shade. A priest watches us roll past from the archway of his tiny basilica. He looks as if he were expecting us. No doubt he knows our destination, our intentions deep in the jungle.     When we emerge from the air-conditioning they tell us that the village we have arrived in has no name. The sun is behind the mountains but the air is still thick and stifling. Skinny dogs pace nervously around keeping their distance. There are two dozen stone houses covered with rotting stucco and a tiny adobe church with plywood nailed haphazardly over its windows and doors. A bloodstain runs down the front steps and bullet holes pockmark the fronts of all the houses on this dirt street. I see that the soldiers are not the "well-paid" professionals I first thought but uninterested teenage conscripts wearing mismatched uniforms. They want the rich gringos to know they are not impressed by what they are seeing. They lounge around sending out clouds of cigarette smoke and attitude. The jeep beat crunch of big bass spills out of their giant Korean headphones. Gangsta rap acquires new meaning in the proximity of real guns, the country's gutted constitution suddenly a palpable absence.     Several tents have been set up in a square. One larger one is empty except for a small raised platform covered in green AstroTurf. Most of the villagers are sitting in this temporary town hall watching a big screen television someone from our group has set up for their entertainment. I peek my head inside and watch from the open door flaps as cinematic explosions mix with images of hand-to-hand combat. Two young boys turn away from the movie and smile at me. The excitement on their faces is real and I recognize the undubbed movie as American, the bland language of extreme violence and high-tech exotica: Die Hard 2 .     I sit in the dust of the hard-packed courtyard, pointing the camera up at the shaman's elongated face as he talks to the gathered wedding party. He tells us that we will be awakened before dawn and that the ceremony will go on for twenty-four hours. He looks indigenous but his accent sounds familiar. He's wearing military jump boots and a headdress of parrot feathers. The four couples come to the front and everyone claps and cheers. The shaman blows sage smoke toward them and rings his little bells and chants something unintelligible. Then he wishes us all a good sleep and a good evening. People wander off to their tents, the sound of animated talk and laughter echoing in the surrounding mountains.     "Guerrillas were spotted today," he says to me, his accent wavering in and out of recognition. I put the camera down. We are alone in the clearing. A jungle bird shrieks and takes sudden flight through the heavy canopy.     "I thought there was no civil war," I say.     "They are criminals," he says. " Banditos ." He's smiling at me as if he had just made a joke I should be getting.     "But they want to overthrow the government, right?"     "Sometimes these men like to blow things up. They set the forest on fire and kill ambassadors. The people call them the Robin Hoods of the Rain Forest." Still the shit-eating grin dominates his face. What is it I'm not getting here?     "Why would they set the forest on fire?"     "Because they are crazy," he says. "They believe in nothing." The smile remains on his face, an enigmatic counterpoint to the mystery I'm not being let in on. I WAKE FROM A DIE HARD , QUICK-CUT DREAM of car chases, explosions, and digitally enhanced machine-gun fire. In America I might get up from such a dream, go to the bathroom, then go back to sleep without even remembering it ever happened. Here I sit on the edge of the tiny cot, dripping sweat, hyperventilating, terrified that my flashy, Technicolor dreams are spreading across the world.     What if they set the forest on fire because they believe in nothing?     What if the audience laughs and stamps its feet when the machine guns roar?     In a few minutes the shaman walks through the camp ringing a small bronze bell. A hand-rolled cigarette hangs unlit from the corner of his mouth. A necklace embedded with crystals hangs from his neck. He has a studied look about him, too many cliches--the shaved head of a Tibetan monk, old combat boots, unlaced and with the tongues hanging out, large silver earring. I want one of those sweet smelling cigarettes of his, but I'm not going to do anything weird for it, no bowing or feet kissing, or sage blown in my face. He smiles when I ask for one like he knows I'm on to him.     "Would you like me to roll you one?"     "I would appreciate that," I say, and he deftly makes another cigarette and hands it to me. I notice that the olive color of his skin has been chemically enhanced. The accent is American, probably southern East Coast. He's near fifty and I imagine that his big year was 1969, back when he used Ravi Shankar, early Pink Floyd, and high-grade LSD for his primitive seductions. Now his technique is nearly flawless. He lights his own cigarette after getting mine started. This smoke is the only thing that seems in the least bit normal on this particular morning in my life.     "You from the South?" I ask. He flashes that wry smile and gives me a long, unblinking stare.     "I grew up there," he says, this time without a trace of American accent. He sounds vaguely European. "I haven't been back in many, many years." The tone of his voice says, Leave it alone, smart ass. This is my territory . We smoke in silence, then he steps on his cigarette butt with the toe of one of his combat boots. I also step on mine and find myself involuntarily sighing. He laughs, mocking my discomfort, then picks up the bronze bell. He checks his watch, a beat-up vintage Breitling with a cracked face. Holding the bell at arm's length, he hits the side in short wrist-snapping motions. I move away as people wander dazed into the open ground between the tents. The smell of coffee finally wakes me up and I'm relieved the night is over and this wedding--or whatever it is--is about to begin. THE SHAMAN WALKS AT THE HEAD of a long procession of Americans moving through the jungle. The trail has been widened by men with machetes and the small footbridges show signs of recent repair. I look for snakes hanging from the triple jungle canopy but it is hard to see anything. It's like being in a cave, there are so many layers of growth for the sun to penetrate. The soldiers aren't with us today. The villagers and soldiers were watching Die Hard 3 when we left.     After breakfast the whole courtyard turned into a big finger-painting scene. Big bowls of primary colored paints were applied to every gringo in our party. The wedding couples had aquamarine paint plastered over their naked bodies like mud. Some of the celebrants, including the younger women, are topless now that we've left the village. Some "best men" and friends are painted blood or rust red and all the guests except me have had a gold stripe painted vertically in the center of their foreheads. Many men have tiny green spirals covering their backs. Red spirals for the backs of the women including Gwyn. People carry drums that they pound in oblivious disregard to one another. Chanting and ringing bells punctuate the chaos.     After a mile and a half we file into a clearing where there is a small stone temple forty feet high and covered in vines. Small trees grow here and there in the cracks of the stones. The temple is covered in crude markings and symbols applied in expressionistic splashes of synthetic color. The colors and designs match those on the wedding party as if some designer had carefully coordinated the whole operation. I stop walking, letting Gwyn and the others file around me, and pan the camera across the spirals and graffiti covering every ancient stone.     The steps are shiny with use and stained a deep umber, as though an oil spill had slicked them down. At the top of the altar are the skulls of various animals stuck on the end of poles. I recognize deer and cow and some kind of big cat. Beneath these on shorter poles are smaller skulls that might be human. A sage fire is burning at the top of the temple. A man I have not seen before fans a banana-leaf broom over the smoke, spreading it in deliberate circles. The wedding processional begins to work its way slowly up the steps.     The temple is larger than it looks from the ground. Even the stones at our feet are covered in designs. Several coats of paint cover trace lines where the original brush strokes and handprints have been reapplied and kept fresh. The shaman and Louise Sanderson stand together on a raised platform. The shaman blows even more sage at the bridal couples. The rest of us form a wide semicircle. When the shaman starts talking his accent is distinctly southeastern U.S. He's pouring on this faux-hick aw-shucks thing that makes me laugh out loud.     "Folks, we are gathered here in this sacred place to unite these couples in a spiritual and ritual union. The vows have all been said individually and the wedding will be consummated by participation in the consumption of the divine elixir ... blah, blah, blah." He drones on for half an hour. Men with bellows fan giant piles of sage. I'm blinded by the smoke, gagging it's so thick.     Women with their breasts covered in blue mud, come around holding large wooden ladles filled with a yellowish liquid. When the ladle is offered me I can't take my eyes off the woman's firm and very purple breasts. She makes a disgusted face and walks away. An aerial still shot of the purple Kool-Aid apocalypse of Jonestown flashes before me.     "What is this?" I whisper into the ear of the woman standing next to me. She whispers back.     "Ayahuasca."     "But what is it?"     "Liquid godhead," she replies and turns away.     Then I see Gwyn standing naked from the waist up, her eyes closed and a little smile on her face because a man with a brush is painting gold star patterns on her breasts. I watch the end of the brush move around her nipples and see them move slightly with each dab of color. I'm going to kill that guy if he keeps it up much longer, but just then he steps back to admire his handiwork. Gwyn opens her eyes and nods her head to thank him then twirls, dervishlike round and round. I focus the camera on her and start getting hard, thinking of our afternoon in the hotel. She twirls faster, giving the camera a workout.     "I'm dizzy from that shit," she says, coming to a stop and moving out of the crowd and grabbing a hold of my hand. There is a sloppy star painted across her face which turns her smile into a lewd remark. My beautiful clown. My Gwyn.     "Don't worry so much," she says, pinching my cheek a little too hard. "We read about this stuff, remember. It's the newest thing. The shamans have been using it for centuries to induce visions." I do remember reading about ayahuasca in one of Gwyn's New Age magazines. It was in Details , too, so I start to relax and go back to shooting.     The woman with the bowl appears again and holds the ladle up to my lips. The smell is acidic and fruity, but I take an exploratory slurp. As it goes down my throat I feel an alkaloid afterburn. Then I down the whole ladle and some of it drips out the sides of my mouth and down my neck, stinging my skin. I want to be with Gwyn. I want to follow her to wherever she's gone. The top of my head becomes warm; the drumming gets faster. Whatever was in that wooden bowl kicks in with a vengeance. I'M BUMPING INTO PEOPLE who are twirling and spinning. The newlyweds dance naked in a little group in the center of this carnival. The couples are all mixed up now, gay man with straight wife. Straight husband with gay male partner. I keep filming, following the action even though my own eyes are seeing trails attached to things, exploding colors, and grotesque masks that are only faces. Louise Sanderson smiles and waves at me when I find her in the viewfinder. A younger man is licking her stomach with a skinny purple tongue. She holds his head to her groin and throws her head back and screams. I do long pans across the tops of the increasingly grotesque heads and try to stay in focus but my eyes are getting worse.     The shaman appears in my viewfinder. He's a long way off, sitting on a rotting log, just watching and smoking with that superior smirk on his lips. I zoom in on him, catch him laughing to himself, shaking his head from side to side. I want another one of those cigarettes to sober me up. He disappears while I'm getting a shot of some dancers so I search the area on telephoto until I see his back disappearing into the undergrowth. I feel compelled to see what he's up to.     It takes some time to walk through the carnival. The ground has turned to rubber and my depth perception is off. I'm knocked down by two whirling women with blue mud matted in their hair. Tripping on the liquid godhead, I'm beginning to think of myself in the third person, no longer someone making a film, but someone in a film that's veering out of control. I keep the camera going, cradling it to my side as I wander into the jungle. A path appears through the trees, which I follow for a hundred yards until I hear voices up ahead. The voices are male, speaking a mixture of Spanish and English. The earth heaves and pulsates in front of my feet and I move impulsively off the trail and pull a flanking maneuver, creeping steadily forward toward the sound of hushed conversation. I feel suddenly clear-headed and lucid, as if hunting these voices has kicked in some instinctual and primal knowledge of just how to act in this situation. I SMELL THE SMOKE from their cigarettes the moment before I see them. The shaman is crouched down in a circle of men wearing black berets. Two dozen men are languorously spread out in a small clearing with Chinese machine guns, grenades, and bandoliers slung haphazardly over their bodies. They talk softly while I focus on them in the viewfinder. The shaman says clearly, and in an unmistakable Mexican accent, "The payment should be $100,000 US." He mentions an account number and a Swiss bank. One of the men sits on the ground with a PowerBook propped on his knees. A large briefcase is open next to him and I see the small satellite umbrella unfolded and pointed at an open spot in the canopy. He's clicking at the keypad and I hear the modern connecting to a number. Then I notice that most of the men having conversations in Spanish have cellular phones to their ears. The man with the PowerBook looks up and says, "The money is in the account." As he shakes hands with one of the men talking into a cellular phone, the shaman's smirk is really more a grimace or facial tic than any emotive sign.     "Congratulations, Commander," one of the men says to the shaman. They shake hands.     I hear a loud metallic click in my ear and turn to see two men standing over me with their guns pointed at my head. I'm so high at this point, so far gone into this thing that I laugh at them and push the barrels out of my face. They escort me into the clearing and all the black berets stand up. The shaman takes the camera out of my hands, then slaps me across the face hard enough to set me down in the mud. I'm laughing, because his face is melting and doing fun-house-mirror tricks. The man who was working the PowerBook is rewinding the tape in the camera and watching through the viewfinder, looking for something. "Got it," I hear him say through the din in my head and I'm conscious enough to know that he is erasing their presence from the tape. My earlier cryptic conversation with the shaman gets replayed in my head. They are criminals , he said. They are crazy because they believe in nothing .     No doubt Louise Sanderson was given safe passage through "rebel controlled territory" by making this small contribution to the cause.     The trees behind their heads seem to be dancing and taking on all sorts of biomorphic traits. Happy faces and Lord of the Rings animation. The shaman's face hovers over mine, coming into focus for a second, then blurring. His breath smells like bananas and cigarettes and he's talking to me, though the words are out of sync, disembodied, and lost in the din of the growing hallucination. I do hear one thing clearly but it is not coming out of his mouth at the same time he says it. "This gringo is really fucked up," he says without moving his lips. The wedding sounds come and go on the breeze as the shaman propels me back through the jungle, to the reception and he drops me uncerimoniously in the mud along with my camera. His terrible banana and cigarette breath is on me again, his beady little eyes boring in. "Go back to your New York City," he says. "Tell all your rich friends what a beautiful little jungle we have down here." It's the last thing I remember--the incessant and sinister beating of those stupid drums. I START FEELING BETTER on the jet flying back to New York. Gwyn's leaning over me with a hot towel that she's wiping across my face. We seem to be the only two awake; the plane is dark and full of in-flight vibration and air-conditioning whispers.     "You went way out," she says.     "I need water," I say. She hands me a bottle and I finish it and ask for another. She gets me another one from the bag at her feet.     "You were really tripping out there. You started chanting and rolling around in the mud. At one point you were dancing around and around your camera with your eyes closed yelling, `Mommy, Mommy, I'm flying! I'm really flying!' We had to carry you all the way back to the tents. And you slept all the way to the airport."     "It was in that stuff we drank. It was painted on the rocks of that temple. I honestly don't remember what happened, " I say, lying. I do remember what I saw up there on the temple or what I imagined I saw. I remember the men in the clearing as if they were sitting next to me in this plane. If I was dancing around my camera, then I'm no longer anonymous. I'm in my own movie, forever part of this weird event.     "Gwyn," I touch her upper arm. "We need to get away from these people as soon as we get back to New York."     "It's okay," she rubs her fingers through my hair. "There's nothing to worry about."     Obviously, Gwen went to some blissful place on her cupful of ayahuasca. In my dream there was blood and bones, people moved willingly and trance-like into a giant plume of orange flame. The dark stain down the front of the steps was not the shiny remnants of a million feet, but dried blood turned dark with time. I must have been filming most of this because I remember in framed, sweeping pan shots and purposely out-of-focus scenes of dancing and chaos. Somewhere in this vision I see distinctly the men in the jungle waiting and watching over us, as paid for as the soldiers. I remember Louise in her chic white dress moving untouched through the mud. The purple tongue of the young man on his knees at her feet.     "We both need a hot bath and a good bed," she says, touching my face with her fingers. She snuggles close to me, bumping up against my camera bag. When I lift it out of the way, I notice how light it feels. I open it and look inside and the tape cases are empty. Only my 35 mm camera is left but the film has been removed. Gwyn doesn't look surprised, in fact, she seems relieved.     "They just took the stuff."     "Last time I saw you the camera was covered in mud. Pieces were missing."     "They can't just steal my tapes and camera."     "You signed a contract. The tapes are theirs."     "Yeah, so a bunch of very wealthy people are worshipping Dionysus down in South America. Big deal. What are they so paranoid about?"     "Remember," she says, "more money than God. Some of these people are high up in the government and entertainment. They have images to maintain."     "Don't worry, I got paid," I say, but in truth I feel burned. I wanted to see the footage, to see what I could do with it. What the hell. I shrug it off, change the subject.     "What would you say about having a little wedding?" I say it as a joke.     "Are you proposing to me?" She's trying to sound funny but I see a serious look in her eye.     "Just a quiet little get-together."     "How about a Methodist church in a quiet little town. The bride wears white." She's still got the look in her eye.     "We'll drag a ram's head behind the electric car."     "Yeah," she says, drawing looks from the nearby passengers. "We'll drive it to a little Cape Cod house with a white picket fence." She's giggling, weightless. Someone in the seat behind us laughs and I recognize the gravelly edge. I sit up and turn around and there is Louise giving me that charity-ball smile as hollow as it is perfect. My neck and face start to burn and the inside of the plane goes out of focus. Gwyn pats my arm saying, "Forget about it."     But I know it's going to be a long time before I find all the little pieces I've left scattered around this hemisphere. I'm hyperventilating and the sweat pours off my face. I try deep breaths to calm down, touch my hand to my chest and feel something hard in my pocket. I take out the object carefully keeping it from view. It's a plastic case with the 8 mm dub I must have made sometime during the ceremony. The tape is still inside. Gwyn covers her mouth to suppress her shout when I show it to her.     "Inside that little house with the picket fence?" I say, raising my voice loud enough for Louise to hear clearly. "Late at night, we'll dance around and whirl like dervish."     "In our little garden, we'll grow sunflowers as big as Frisbees," she says, wild-eyed and happy that she's letting Louise know how she really feels.     "Someone will write PIGS on the door of the refrigerator in a stupid, childlike scrawl."     "And we'll live happily ever after," she says, raising her voice and catching the disgusted look the couple across the aisle is giving us. "We'll live like we can afford to own the world." (C) 1999 Joseph Clark All rights reserved. ISBN: 0-393-04526-9

by Upton Sinclair

• The Jungle Summary

The Jungle is the story of Jurgis Rudkus and his family, Lithuanian immigrants who come to America to work in the meatpacking plants of Chicago. Their story is a story of hardship. They face enormous difficulties: harsh and dangerous working conditions, poverty and starvation, unjust businessmen who take their money, and corrupt politicians who create laws that allow all of this to happen. The story follows the hardships of Jurgis and his family and the transformation that Jurgis undergoes when he accepts the new political and economic revolution of socialism.

The novel begins at the wedding of Jurgis and Ona Rudkus. Marija Berczynskas , a strong and commanding woman, directs the wedding and Tamoszius Kuszleika provides music with his violin. Although Tamoszius's "notes are never true, and his fiddle buzzes on the low ones and squeaks and scratches on the high," he is the star of the wedding. Everyone in the slums of Packingtown is invited, and they are supposed to pay tribute to the family. Many do not, however, and this leaves Jurgis and Ona deeply in debt on the first day of their marriage.

Jurgis and Ona came from the countryside of Lithuania. Because Jurgis and Ona were not allowed to marry in Lithuania and because Ona's father dies, leaving them with little money, Jurgis decides to move his and Ona's family to America. Jonas, Jurgis's brother, tells them of a friend who made a fortune in Chicago and they decide to go there. Upon arriving in America, however, they discover that while the wages are higher, so are the prices. Several agents and thieves scam them when they arrive, and soon much of their money is gone.

In Chicago, they live in a polluted and corrupt slum. Part of their neighborhood, Packingtown, is built upon a garbage dump, and that entire part of the city reeks of garbage and is filled with flies. Jurgis and Ona still feel as though they have much potential in this new land, however. Jurgis goes to the meatpacking plant and immediately finds a job sweeping blood and innards from slaughtered cattle through a drain. The work is very hard and the conditions are very unsafe, but Jurgis is strong and stubborn and cannot understand any man who is not thankful for the opportunity to have work and to earn a living. Many of the workers are bitter about their working conditions, however.

The packinghouses are dirty and unsanitary places where every part of the animal is used to make a profit. Often, spoiled meat will be marked as good and sent out for sale. Many of the old or rotten pieces of animals are sold, and even the refuse from drainage is thrown into the pile of meat to be canned or made into sausage. In some of the factories, dead rats are added to the meat. The workers do not care and the factory bosses do everything they can to speed up the production of the meat. Often the factories will hire extra workers just to keep wages down. There are always more men looking for jobs than there are jobs to give, so most men only make a few cents per hour.

The family sees an advertisement for a house to buy, and they decide that it will be worth their money to buy instead of throwing away their money on rent every month. The house is advertised as new, though it does not look that way, and the real estate agent is a slick man and sells it to them for only a few hundred dollars down. The family balks at the contract, however, when it says that they will only be renting the house, but several lawyers tell them that this is standard and that after seven years of payments they will own the house. The family signs the agreement and moves into the house. They buy new furniture and all settle into their new lives. Marija and Jonas get jobs, and soon Ona and little Stanislovas, one of the family's children, work as well, but they always afford their payment. Soon, however, they find out that they are charged interest on the house and must buy insurance. They soon find that the real estate company sells the houses as new, but then kicks out the occupants when they cannot pay the rent and interest and then sells it to another naïve immigrant family.

The winters are very hard in Chicago, and often the snow is so deep that the family has a difficult time getting to work. Jurgis comes to understand the hardships of his job and of his fellow workers. They are worked to the bone, and the companies do everything they can to speed up the work and to pay lower wages. They use corrupt practices to sell rotting meat, and they can do all of this because they own the politicians who make the laws. Jurgis and Marija join the unions and soon become active members. Jurgis becomes a "crusader" for the unions and sets out to "spread the gospel of Brotherhood by force of arms." In the summer, Marija's factory is furloughed because there is not enough work to employ everyone, so the family begins to struggle even more with money.

Old Antanas dies from sickness that he contracts in one of the factories, and Ona and Teta Elzbieta go into the workforce in order to help the family meet its financial obligations. Their work is difficult, and when Ona becomes pregnant, she is forced to continue working and given only a week off to have her child. She returns to the workforce too quickly and is beset with pain and sickness for the rest of her life. One day, Jurgis finds that Ona does not come home from the factory. When he finds her and questions her, he soon learns that she is being forced into sexual relations by one of the factory bosses. This infuriates Jurgis, who goes to the factory where he beats the man. He is thrown in jail and cannot work. The family falls into an even greater economic depression.

When Jurgis leaves jail, he returns home to find that Ona is in childbirth several months before their second child is due to be born. Ona then dies in childbirth, and Jurgis falls into turmoil. He begins to drink heavily, and Elzbieta keeps his money from him so that the family might survive. Jurgis goes into the city where he soon finds work at a harvesting-machine plant. Philanthropists run the plant is run, and it gives the workers a decent living with fair working conditions. Jurgis soon loses that job, however, and this causes him a greater hatred for the economic systems that keep him and his family in poverty and deny him the ability to work for his keep.

Again without a job, Jurgis begs for work and food. He has a fortuitous turn when one of the children meets a "settlement-worker" who promises Jurgis a job in a steel mill fifteen miles from his home. Jurgis travels to work at this place but soon has an accident with the fiery steel, which takes the skin off his hand. He returns home and cares for his young son for several days. He returns to work when he is healed and comes home on Saturdays to visit his family. He comes home one day, however, to find that his young son Antanas has drowned in one of Packingtown's flooded streets.

Jurgis then leaves Packingtown, hopping on a train into the countryside. He becomes a tramp, traveling across the country, sleeping in fields and forests and taking meals from farmers when he can. He decides now that he will fight the world that has caused him such hardships and do as he pleases. He spends his money on prostitutes and drinking and becomes a migrant farm laborer. He feels freer than he ever has before. One night, however, he stays with a farmer and, upon seeing the farmer's wife bathe their young son, he is filled with grief over the death of his son.

Jurgis returns to Chicago and finds a job building rail tunnels beneath the streets of Chicago. While working at this job one evening, he is struck by a runaway train and badly breaks his arm. After being in the hospital for many days, he is released back onto the street. He has no money, however, and cannot work because of his injury. Jurgis begins to beg on the streets and becomes very hungry and very cold. During one bitter cold streak, Jurgis meets a drunken young man on the street. The young man invites him back to his house, and Jurgis learns that he has found the youngest son of Jones, one of the packing plant owners, who owns an extravagant house with many expensive things. Jurgis steals one hundred dollars from the boy but is then kicked out of the house. He tries to break the hundred-dollar bill, but gets in a fight after a barkeeper steals his money, and he once again goes to jail.

While in jail, Jurgis meets with Jack Duane , an old friend from his previous jail stint. Duange invites Jurgis into his life of petty thievery, and Jurgis soon becomes involved in all kinds of illegal scams and swindles. He falls in with the Chicago crime scene and soon makes a good deal of money. He then becomes involved in the corrupt Chicago political machine and takes part in a scam to help Mike Scully , the political power of Packingtown, elect a Republican to the city council and to help retain his power. Jurgis makes good money from this scam and gets a job at the packing plant earning more money.

When the great Beef Strike occurs, Jurgis stays at his job and becomes a scab. He earns even more money but begins to drink heavily, gamble, and take part in fights. The packers bring in poor black laborers from the South to break the strike, and Packingtown is soon embroiled in even more filth and debauchery than before. One evening, Jurgis is drunk and walking home when he runs into Connor, the man who raped his wife. He becomes so enraged that he begins to beat Connor again. He is arrested and, though he has political connections now, he cannot get out of jail because Connor was a friend of Scully's. A friend helps him post bail and, now without any money again, Jurgis skips town.

Once again a tramp, Jurgis begs and steals to find food to eat. After going to a political rally in order to stay warm one evening, Jurgis runs into an old friend from Lithuania, who gives him Marija's address. Jurgis finds Marija in a whorehouse, working as a prostitute. Marija tells Jurgis that this is the only way that she could find to provide for herself and the remaining members of the family. Even Stanislovas had been killed by rats after getting locked in a factory at night. Jurgis is suddenly arrested in a raid on the whorehouse. While spending the night in jail, Jurgis descends into the deepest despair of his soul and the voices of his past are extinguished.

After release from jail, Jurgis once again goes to a political rally in order to find a warm place to sit for a while. When he falls asleep in the rally, a young woman calls him "comrade" and tells him that he should pay attention and that maybe he would find something to like in the political speech. Jurgis suddenly becomes fascinated with the speaker, a fiery man, who details all of the economic, social, and political unjustness that keeps workers in poverty and in hardship. Jurgis comes up to the man afterwards and asks to know more. He goes home with a man named Ostrinski, who explains socialism.

Jurgis becomes a proud advocate for the Socialist Party. He goes to work for a man named Hinds, an ardent Socialist, as a hotel porter. He enters a "life of the mind" and learns as much as he can about this political and economic system. He is invited to a dinner at a prominent Socialist's house, where he hears a Socialist intellectual, a preacher of Christian Socialism, and a skeptical newspaper editor debate the merits of a new Socialist world order. After the dinner, Jurgis attends an election night celebration at the Socialist Party headquarters. The number of Socialist votes that come in are extraordinary. The Socialists have increased their voter turnout by over three hundred percent. A speaker rises to tell the crowd to avoid complacency and to fight for the Socialist Party cause and that soon "Chicago will be ours!"

The Jungle Questions and Answers

The Question and Answer section for The Jungle is a great resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss the novel.

In Chapter One, a crisis occurs when the family cannot raise the money needed to pay for the wedding. This results in increased hardships and a darker mood for the family with Jurgis’s promise to “work harder.”

where does Jurgis begin his sentence? why does he remain alone?

Jurgis is sent to Bridewell Prison. He wants to get out in ten days so he tries to stay out of trouble.

What did he say?

From the text:

There were the butt-ends of smoked meat, and the scraps of corned beef, and all the odds and ends of the waste of the plants, that would be dumped into old barrels in the cellar and left there. Under the system of rigid economy...

Study Guide for The Jungle

The Jungle study guide contains a biography of Upton Sinclair, literature essays, a complete e-text, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis.

• About The Jungle
• Character List

Essays for The Jungle

The Jungle essays are academic essays for citation. These literature papers were written primarily by students and provide critical analysis of The Jungle by Upton Sinclair.

• "The Jungle: Fiction, History, or Both?"
• Upton Sinclair's Indictment of Wage Slavery in The Jungle
• Preying on the Immigrant Experience: Sinclair's The Jungle
• The (Literal) Jungle: Symbolism and Meaning in Sinclair's Narrative
• Muckrakers: Differing Styles in Upton Sinclair and Eric Schlosser

Lesson Plan for The Jungle

• About the Author
• Study Objectives
• Common Core Standards
• Introduction to The Jungle
• Relationship to Other Books
• Bringing in Technology
• Notes to the Teacher
• Related Links
• The Jungle Bibliography

E-Text of The Jungle

The Jungle e-text contains the full text of The Jungle by Upton Sinclair.

• Chapters 1-5
• Chapters 6-10
• Chapters 11-15
• Chapters 16-20
• Chapters 21-25

Wikipedia Entries for The Jungle

• Introduction
• Plot summary
• Publication history

Home / Essay Samples / Literature / The Jungle / Analysis And Reflection On The Jungle By Upton Sinclair

Analysis And Reflection On The Jungle By Upton Sinclair

• Category: Social Issues , Literature
• Topic: Corruption , The Jungle , Upton Sinclair

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