Jurgis and Ona's wedding feast in Packingtown; the family's arrival in Chicago; their first encounters with the stockyards; the purchase of the house on a predatory installment plan.

The family is pulled into the meatpacking system; children sent to work; the speedup intensifies; Jurgis's father Dede Antanas dies from chemical exposure; winter devastates the family's finances.

Ona is sexually coerced by her boss Phil Connor; Jurgis discovers the assault and attacks Connor; Jurgis is imprisoned; the family loses the house and is evicted.

Ona dies in childbirth; Jurgis's son Antamas drowns in a street puddle; Jurgis abandons the remnants of his family and becomes a tramp riding the rails.

Jurgis returns to Chicago; enters the criminal underworld with Jack Duane; becomes a mugger and con man; is recruited into the political machine as a vote fixer and strikebreaker.

A major strike erupts in the stockyards; Jurgis works as a scab; the strike fails; Jurgis discovers Marija working as a prostitute; Teta Elzbieta and the children survive on scraps.

Jurgis hits rock bottom — homeless, unemployable, blacklisted; he begs, steals, and wanders Chicago's underworld; the full scope of Packingtown's destruction is laid bare.

Jurgis wanders into a socialist rally to escape the cold; a powerful orator awakens his political consciousness; he discovers the socialist movement and begins to understand his suffering as systemic exploitation.

Jurgis works within the socialist movement; election returns show growing socialist support; the novel ends with a rally cry — 'Chicago will be ours!' — but the structural problems remain unresolved.