ock, 2 horses he was meant to sell at the fair. Sinclair's imagery here is intentionally ironic in its foreshadowing. When Jurgis, Ona and her family arrive in America, they will be exploited by the Chicago firms of Brown and Durham's as if they were merely bits of flesh to be traded in for cash.
Sinclair presents the story of Jurgis and his family as the tale of the underclass. As defined by sociologist Herbert Gans the term underclass was first used to name victims of the post-industrialist economy, individuals chronically unemployed or unemployed. Economically, it was necessary for subgroups of the population to be poor to maintain society's current structuring.
Jurgis and his family are continually being pushed further into the miry pools of poverty. Injured with a sprain and unable to work for 2 weeks, Jurgis looses his job (143). Marija's success in obtaining a job as a beef-trimmer is that as a woman she can be paid half the salary of the man who preceded her (127). Vitally concerned about understanding their real estate contract in preparation for buying a house in Packingtown, Jurgis and his family fail to see that their debt will not only be twelve dollars per month, but an additional eight owed to the accruing interest (58).
Sinclair's tone throughout the novel is oppressive. Jurgis comes to symbolize the corruption of the American dream. Pitted against corporate industrial giants, he cannot win. Defining Jurgis as part of the undeserving poor
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