Saturday, April 14, 2012
Does Experience Change Belief?-The Jungle
After reading The Jungle, I do believe that experience can change belief. Jurgis and his family come to America hoping to find a happy, prosperous life. They are chasing "The American Dream"--they believe that America is a land of opportunity, where you can immediately find a better life. However, after experiencing life in Packingtown, their perception of America changes. Slowly but surely, their opinions change. At first, Jurgis does not mind the unfair wages, harsh conditions, and horrible bosses he must endure to make money. He is just glad that he is making money. However, over time, he becomes more involved in the unions, and Conner, by raping Ona, affects his personal life. Finally, by the end of the story, Jurgis is a supporter of socialism, and is determined to help "Take Chicago." However, I'm not quite sure that every belief Jurgis and his family came to Chicago with was changed by their experience. Throughout the book, I think Jurgis' belief in doing the right thing stays constant. I also think that his hard-working attitude does not completely diminish. Even at the end, he becomes dedicated to a cause, just as at the beginning he is dedicated to his work and family. Overall, I think the most drastic change in belief was their belief in America and capitalism. Jurgis and his family experienced so much corruption, struggle, and hardships that their faith in America and its systems were sure to be eradicated.
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The question that your asking is one of three of the concepts we've been talking about: pragmatism, naturalism, and catharsis. Experience changing belief is, in Jurgis' context, fundamentally a question of realization of his past and future being the same (or worse, given that his whole family hadn't died before he believed in the American dream): poor, dirty, and stuck, immobile in a social and financial sense. Similar to Crane's Maggie, Jurgis undergoes significant trials to realize this social immobility under the hierarchic system, losing jobs and family along the way, though Jurgis has a more upbeat future after this realization. Maggie hadn't realized this, which became her downfall. In other words, a pragmatic realization of Jurgis' naturalistic past and future (i.e. Jurgis' failure to achieve the American dream for himself and family) led to Jurgis' and our catharsis, relieved to have some hope for the future that Sinclair hopes we will be a part of.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you, then, that Jurgis' experience changed at least some of his beliefs (and as Sinclair hopes, our beliefs), as the achievement of the American dream despite upward immobility and implied social Darwinist tendencies was deemed impossible in his context. I am not sure that his belief on doing right stays constant, though, because when he attacks Connor, it is clear that he changed for the worse, doing the wrong thing. He became animalistic and violent, devolving into something that the system needs and respects (a simple, strong, unthinking, amoral cog in a machine, willing to sacrifice anyone and anything to get ahead). We can see the transformation into an animal, Jurgis' lowest point, when he attacks Connor. In Sinclair's words, "He fought like a tiger, writhing and twisting, half flinging them off, and starting toward his unconscious enemy." With blood dripping from his mouth and flesh still in his mouth, he is carted away to jail. Whether or not this kind of vengeance is right I guess would depend on your definition of "right". Maybe it is, maybe it isn't; but I think that at least his definition of right had been changed at this point.