Can You Catch the Jungle?

Why write about the "loopholes and bureaucratic wrinkles and Catch-22s that trap, stunt and sour life for modern Americans, modern Chicagoans" (Reardon 6). Why not focus on the glorious city of chicago -- Wrigley, Sears, some great architecture, cool pier, lakeside landscapes. It's no paradise. I've been to Costa Rica, so I know authentic paradise, but Chicago is a city that sparkles in rain, sleet, snow, grit or grime. And that resilient glory of the city, in a way, makes it one of the most unique places.

In the "Jungle", Upton Sinclair doesn't point fingers at those overpowering, but also at those overpowered. He "calls the powerless to task for permitting themselves to become victims" (Reardon 6). The oppressor and the victim (for playing that victimized role) create the two-pronged problem. After all, remember, that Foucault said power is always based on reciprocity, relationships and resistance. The victim and the oppressor are in that relationship together and their reciprocity revolves around one choosing to be overpowered, the other, to overbear. We should stop playing this counter-cooperative roles and just surf more.

The icy winter chill in Chicago, Sinclair describes, got so deadly "one bitter morning in February...the little boy who worked at the lard machine with Stanislovas came home an hour late, screaming in pain" (Reardon 6). It turned out that when, "they unwrapped him, and a man began vigorously rubbing his ears; and as they were frozen stiff, it took only two or three rubs to break them short off" (Reardon). Now that is a cold chill. Chicago is "windy" because of its politics, but that icy wind, is brutal.

Upton writes of the problems faced by Jurgis, the everyday man. He faces "death, seduction, betrayal, injury, hunger, disfigurement, bankruptcy, deception, illness, terror, abandonment" (Reardon 6). Great, who cares? Who wants to read about all the qualms and quagmires of some fictional bloke? Tell me about an extraordinary life not because of its dilemmas and disturbing grotesqueness, but because of its exhilaration and joy. Their has GOT to be more stories about some cutback someone just did on the perfect face of a wave. That's what I want to be reading about. I could care less about how some fictional Jurgis suffers. That makes the reader suffer. I don't want to waste my time with that. And I don't care if it is in the must-read genre of "classical literature". Fathoming hardship in small dosages is great for creating appreciation of joy, but reading about it nonstop in “The Jungle” is merely a waste of time. The only thing that is certain about it, is its "classic drab, blandness that makes you neglect the important things in life". The important things are surfing. Recognize the unique grit and flavorful urban character Chicago possesses. Keep catching the wave.


Reardon. “Chicago Journal: Perspective.” The Chicago Tribune. Feb 26, 2006.