A Challenging Experience: Essay 2
This peice, I would have to say, was my greatest challenge. I wanted to make sure that I got a few of the pieces that we read into the essay but have it make since. I had two of my family members read it before I posted and one said that it was an "F." I thought I would die. She siad it made no sense at all but I knew what I was trying to say. I went back and revised it and got a decent grade; definitly not an "F!" LOL!!
Why America?
People come to America from all over the world to tour such places as the Grande Canyon, Yellowstone Park, Washington, D.C., and the Mall of America, but a great number of people come simply for a new start or a better life. “The Melting Pot” is what America is referred to, “the land of the free, “the land of opportunity.” What type of living conditions would one have to be in, in order for all of them to come to America, a foreign land, usually hundreds of miles away from their homeland, without knowing a full sentence of English, how they were going to get a job, or where their next meal would come from? What type of misconceptions could linger throughout other countries that have such strongholds on people's thoughts about how great our country is?
In “The Jungle” by Upton Sinclair a young man by the name of Jurgis falls in love with a woman named Ona. He wants desperately to marry her but her father refuses to accept his proposal. Jurgis goes home empty handed and tries to forget about Ona but he can’t. A year and a half later he returns to her hometown to find that Ona’s father has died and her family, which consists of six children and four adults, has lost everything. Ona’s brother, Jonas, “suggested they all go to America” (Sinclair 609). It was a country “where, they said, a man might earn three roubles a day; and Jurgis figured what three roubles a day would mean, with prices as they were where he lived” (Sinclair 609), and thought that if he went there he would become a rich man. “He decided forthright that he would go to America” (Sinclair 609). Jurgis and Ona’s family never took the time to find out if what they heard about America was true.
In America could a man, rich or poor, be free and obtain things for free? In “The Promised Land” by Mary Antin it was said that “light was free….music was free…Education was free” (824) and the children and adults within Russia believed these things without question. Did he “not have to pay out his money to rascally officials” or “join the army” (Sinclair 609) as was the thought in The Jungle? Jonas, Ona’s brother, knew of a man who had gone to America and made it rich in the stockyards in Chicago, but he and the others had no idea what a stockyard was. They also didn’t know any English and couldn’t figure out why people “looked perplexed, or laughed, or went on without paying them any attention” (Sinclair 610) when they spoke the one word that they knew in English, “Chicago,” once they reached their destination.
Jurgis never stopped to think about the dollar to rouble ratio or what the cost of living was in America. There was no questioning the type of jobs that were available or that would need to be performed in order to make three roubles a day. There were no conversations about the language that they would need to learn in order to function properly once they made it to “the land of the free.” Jurgis simply “sold himself to a contractor for a certain time, and tramped nearly four hundred miles from home with a gang to work upon a railroad” (Sinclair 610) where he was able to obtain eighty roubles, the cost for the family to travel over the sea, and have some left over.
The whole family learned the hard way that life in America isn’t always what people make it out to be. Jonus, Ona, and Jurgis stepped out in blind faith just as many immigrants did and still do today. The sad thing about this situation is that most immigrants are blind sided by reality that America is not only just like home but sometimes worse.
Works Cited
Antin, Mary. ”from The Promised Land”. The Heath Anthology of American Literature. 5th ed. Vol.C. Ed. Paul Lauter. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2006. 823-829.Sinclair, Upton. ”The Jungle”.
The Heath Anthology of American Literature. 5th ed. Vol. C. Ed. Paul Lauter. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2006. 608-621.
Why America?
People come to America from all over the world to tour such places as the Grande Canyon, Yellowstone Park, Washington, D.C., and the Mall of America, but a great number of people come simply for a new start or a better life. “The Melting Pot” is what America is referred to, “the land of the free, “the land of opportunity.” What type of living conditions would one have to be in, in order for all of them to come to America, a foreign land, usually hundreds of miles away from their homeland, without knowing a full sentence of English, how they were going to get a job, or where their next meal would come from? What type of misconceptions could linger throughout other countries that have such strongholds on people's thoughts about how great our country is?
In “The Jungle” by Upton Sinclair a young man by the name of Jurgis falls in love with a woman named Ona. He wants desperately to marry her but her father refuses to accept his proposal. Jurgis goes home empty handed and tries to forget about Ona but he can’t. A year and a half later he returns to her hometown to find that Ona’s father has died and her family, which consists of six children and four adults, has lost everything. Ona’s brother, Jonas, “suggested they all go to America” (Sinclair 609). It was a country “where, they said, a man might earn three roubles a day; and Jurgis figured what three roubles a day would mean, with prices as they were where he lived” (Sinclair 609), and thought that if he went there he would become a rich man. “He decided forthright that he would go to America” (Sinclair 609). Jurgis and Ona’s family never took the time to find out if what they heard about America was true.
In America could a man, rich or poor, be free and obtain things for free? In “The Promised Land” by Mary Antin it was said that “light was free….music was free…Education was free” (824) and the children and adults within Russia believed these things without question. Did he “not have to pay out his money to rascally officials” or “join the army” (Sinclair 609) as was the thought in The Jungle? Jonas, Ona’s brother, knew of a man who had gone to America and made it rich in the stockyards in Chicago, but he and the others had no idea what a stockyard was. They also didn’t know any English and couldn’t figure out why people “looked perplexed, or laughed, or went on without paying them any attention” (Sinclair 610) when they spoke the one word that they knew in English, “Chicago,” once they reached their destination.
Jurgis never stopped to think about the dollar to rouble ratio or what the cost of living was in America. There was no questioning the type of jobs that were available or that would need to be performed in order to make three roubles a day. There were no conversations about the language that they would need to learn in order to function properly once they made it to “the land of the free.” Jurgis simply “sold himself to a contractor for a certain time, and tramped nearly four hundred miles from home with a gang to work upon a railroad” (Sinclair 610) where he was able to obtain eighty roubles, the cost for the family to travel over the sea, and have some left over.
The whole family learned the hard way that life in America isn’t always what people make it out to be. Jonus, Ona, and Jurgis stepped out in blind faith just as many immigrants did and still do today. The sad thing about this situation is that most immigrants are blind sided by reality that America is not only just like home but sometimes worse.
Works Cited
Antin, Mary. ”from The Promised Land”. The Heath Anthology of American Literature. 5th ed. Vol.C. Ed. Paul Lauter. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2006. 823-829.Sinclair, Upton. ”The Jungle”.
The Heath Anthology of American Literature. 5th ed. Vol. C. Ed. Paul Lauter. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2006. 608-621.
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