The jungle essay

Habib was born in Afghanistan in 1941 and had studied in Afghanistan, the United States, and Russia. He holds a Ph.D. in literature and has written many poems, stories, and essays. He taught at Kabul University in Afghanistan until his retirement.

As the reading public’s response to The Jungle would seem to indicate, Sinclair’s dedication to blunt and sensational detail was useful for depicting the laborers’ external circumstances, but not their internal anguish or psychological conflict.

A morning breeze toured the jungle making the flowers and leaves tango with rhythm and finesse as though they were experts. The lush evergreen trees stood so firm as if the roots were clinging for their very life, in the distance there was a Crystal River and a waterfall as its source.

The fact that The Jungle featured an unsympathetic protagonist and unbelievable characters didn’t deter the reading public, who turned the book into a bestseller and whose outcry against the meat packing industry’s low standards resulted in the 1906 Pure Food and Drug Act.