Every system seemed designed to exploit poor workers.
Day 3 · 목표 ⭐
From corrupt foremen who demanded bribes to dishonest landlords who charged for repairs never made, Jurgis discovered that every institution was structured to extract money from those who had almost none.
2Reading· 오늘의 본문
We · Yevgeny Zamyatin · 1924
Jurgis's day began before dawn, a cold walk to the slaughterhouse where the air was thick with the smell of blood and despair. His muscles ached from yesterday's labor, but the foreman's sharp eyes promised no rest. At lunch, he counted his meager coins, knowing a portion would vanish into the foreman's pocket as a 'fee' for keeping his job. Later, returning to his cramped room, he found a notice from the landlord demanding payment for a 'leaking pipe' he had never seen repaired. Every transaction, from the wage he earned to the roof over his head, was a tiny theft, a system designed to grind his hope into dust along with the animal bones.
B2 · 128 wordsavg 25.6 w/s
Jack London meticulously constructs a world where exploitation is not an aberration but the very architecture of society. Through Jurgis's daily grind, we witness a predatory ecosystem. The corrupt foreman demanding bribes is not a rogue actor but a cog in a machine calibrated to siphon value upward. The dishonest landlord charging for phantom repairs operates within a legal and economic framework that tacitly endorses such extraction. Each institution Jurgis encounters—employment, housing, even the law—is structurally aligned to transfer the scant resources of the poor to those already in possession. His personal struggle becomes a lens focusing the impersonal, systemic violence of capitalism, where the routine of work and survival is itself the mechanism of theft, leaving moral outrage as the only asset that cannot be repossessed. What makes The Iron Heel endure as a work of literature is precisely this refusal to offer easy consolation — it demands that readers sit with the discomfort of a world that does not resolve neatly, and find their own position within it.
C1 · 170 wordsavg 34.0 w/s
3Vocabulary· 핵심 어휘 & 연습
corrupt
부패한
The corrupt foreman demanded a bribe to keep Jurgis on the job.
foremen
감독, 작업반장
The foremen in the slaughterhouse held absolute power over the workers.
bribes
뇌물
Jurgis had to pay bribes just to get his earned wages.
landlords
집주인
The dishonest landlords charged tenants for repairs that were never done.
institution
제도, 기관
Every institution, from the courts to the factories, seemed designed to exploit the poor.
Activity 1 · 빈칸 채우기5 questions
1. Every hour of D-503's life was carefully ____ by the Table of Hours.
2. The ____ of privacy did not exist in the One State.
3. Individual names were ____ and replaced with numbers.
4. The glass walls guaranteed there was no ____ for citizens.
5. The State was ____ declared to represent perfect happiness.