Packingtown workers had a saying that "everything was used of the pig except the squeal." By this, they meant that every last bit of the pig was used to make food. Even rotten, rancid meat was passed off as normal. "Smoked" sausages were doctored with borax and other chemicals instead of really being smoked, because smoking was expensive.
Elzbieta becomes completely depressed from working in the cellar of the sausage-making area, and when she meets Jurgis and Ona to walk home, none of them say a word. Sinclair mentions in the chapter, though, that none of the souls of the workers in this family are dead. They are merely buried under great exhaustion.
Jurgis continues to drink it's the only way he can escape the horrors of his everyday life. Ona falls into a deeper.....
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