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2001 •
Culture, Literature and Migration
LITERARY REPRESENTATIONS OF PROGRESSIVE ERA LITHUANIAN IMMIGRANTS IN THE UNITED STATES AND THE QUESTION OF GENRE: UPTON SINCLAIR’S THE JUNGLE (1906)2019 •
Upton Sinclair's The Jungle is a defining work of the American left. Although it closes with a call-to-action to join the Socialist Movement, the novel's scope is far broader than a single socialist dream. While numerous critiques I have read obsess over the naturalistic and picaresque qualities of the novel, and juxtapose them to the rather romantic denouement, these considerations are a secondary consideration to the dramatic exposure Sinclair gave to the vicious machinery of unregulated industrial capitalism (Homberger 231). The novel can be called politically pivotal only insofar as literature is an effective tool for social change—a debatable notion (Homberger 232). Sinclair himself admitted the novel had not accomplished as much as he had hoped (Sinclair 137). But I would like to focus on the transformational character of industrial capitalism on the human being and how through the use of both naturalistic, picaresque, and romantic writing Sinclair spelled out the process by which he believed humans would experience hope, loss and despair, and then a reconstituted hope—all by enduring unregulated industrial capitalism and finally by moving beyond it. The sensational character of the novel was in part attributable to both the dull literary context of mainstream publishing of the era, and the rise of naturalism.
In this issue's Gallery essay, Kelly Enright takes us deep into the jungle, or at least deep into the changing idea of the jungle in the American psyche. She also journeys across time. By comparing and contrasting two popular images—one a movie poster from the Great Depression and the other a magazine illustration from the late 1950s—Enright traces a transformation in American culture after World War II. What was the jungle, these images suggest, has become the rain forest. NEIL M. MAHER AS SOMEONE WHO became environmentally aware in the 1980s, I was surrounded with images of and information about an extremely fragile and endangered place called the rain forest. Within its dense vegetation roads were being built, trees were being cut, undiscovered animals were vanishing, all while doctors were searching its depths for the cure to fatal diseases. I collected spare change as a volunteer for the Rainforest Alliance in a plastic jar colored with cartoon images of monkeys, toucans, palm trees, vines, and elephants. I did not know then that the image of the " rain forest " was the product of a century of tropical forest representation, whose origins lay in a much different landscape. Although also representing tropical forests, the " jungle " was a very different place. Americans of the early and mid-twentieth century knew not the benevolent diversity of the rain forest, but a dark and dangerous landscape called the jungle. It was the realm of human-like apes, or humans reverting to a primal nature. It was filled with violent peoples, disease-bearing insects, and bloodthirsty carnivores. The same landscapes that to me were fragile and threatened were, some fifty years earlier, vicious and threatening. What accounts for this change in imagery?
Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment
The Birth of a Jungle: Animality in Progressive-Era U.S. Literature and Culture2013 •
isara solutions
Living in Affinity with the Nature: A Study of Select Stories of Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle BookThis paper aims at showing how Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book is a work which advises us to live in affinity with Nature in the spirit of live and let live. The paper also points out how much before the advent of eco-criticism, Kipling sympathetically deals with the idea that the well being of everyone species is something desirable for the preservation of the earth and its eco system. Hence, an ideal state of things would be a beneficial harmony between various species populating the earth and a gentle and kindred attitude to the welfare of the earth and the eco system. The whole project of human flourishing is dependent upon the harmony between the various sentiment and non-sentiment beings on this earth. Although Kipling was an imperialist, in The Jungle Book, he shows a profound insight and sensitivity as to how living beings and non-living beings can thrive and flourish on this earth.
RJELAL
A POSTCOLONIAL AND ECOCRITICAL READING OF THE JUNGLE BOOK: THE NOVEL AND ITS CINEMATIC ADAPTATIONS2024 •
This paper aims to trace the trajectory of inter-semiotic exchanges between Rudyard Kipling's Jungle Book (1894) and its film adaptations by Disney in 1967 and 2016 and by Netflix in 2018. It attempts to understand the continuing appeal of the story despite its uninhibited portrayal of the colonial context. The depiction of anthropomorphic animal characters in an Indian jungle in the late 19 th century whose lives revolve around a human baby implies a colonial heterotopia. Kipling's Mowgli-the "man-cub" adopted by wolves of the Jungle, trying to fight off a maneating tiger Shere Khan is reincarnated in a jovial manner in Disney's 1967 production. The animated movie is far from Kipling's original text in creating an appealing cinematic experience with catchy songs sung by animals. It is removed from the plot of survival strategy of the animal kingdom as presented in the book. Targeted at a young audience, Disney's Mowgli is more human than feral and is shown with a presumed superiority over the animals. The 2016 version of live-action Jungle Book portraying a real boy of Indian origin running around in a CGI jungle frolicking with simulated unreal animals has problematic tones too. An ecocritical reading of the 2016 film has also been attempted to elucidate the film's depiction of environmental manipulation and destruction in the contemporary Anthropocene. Despite its many attempts at improvements, interpretations and interpolations the Jungle Book has remained a colonial text in all forms. The paper attempts to study the imperialist agenda which is the connecting link between Kipling and Disney productions.
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Western American Literature
The Land of Orange Groves and Jails: Upton Sinclair’s California ed. by Lauren Coodley, and Gunfight at Mussel Slough: Evolution of a Western Myth ed. by Terry Beers (review)2006 •
AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIAL AND HUMANITARIAN RESEARCH
Contextualizing Ecocriticism as a Bio-centric Study of Relationship between Human and Nature in John Favreau’s The Jungle Book2020 •
Hispanic Review
Jungle Fever: Exploring Madness and Medicine in Twentieth Century Tropical Narratives by Charlotte Rogers2014 •
2023 •
In Defense of Gopher Prairie: Sinclair Lewis' Main Street as a Critique of Urban Culture
In Defense of Gopher Prairie: Sinclair Lewis' Main Street as a Critique of Urban Culture in 1920s America2013 •
2016 •
Bavidge & Bond (eds), City Visions: The Work of Iain Sinclair
‘Re-Placing the Novel: Sinclair, Ballard and the Spaces of Literature’2007 •
AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIAL AND HUMANITARIAN RESEARCH
View of Contextualizing Ecocriticism as a Bio-centric Study of Relationship between Human and Nature in John Favreau’s The Jungle Book2020 •
2012 •
American Journalism
Gonzo Text: Disentangling Meaning in Hunter S. Thompson's Journalism2015 •
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THE PORTRAYAL OF WOMEN IN MAIN STREET OF SINCLAIR LEWIS.Polish Journal for American Studies 5. Poznań, Poland: Wydawnictwo Naukowe UAM, 2011. 87-98. Print.
“The Road to the Losers’ Club: Hunter S. Thompson and the Canon of American Literature”The Henry James Review
In Possession of a Secret: Rhythms of Mastery and Surrender in" The Beast in the Jungle"1998 •
Journal of Postcolonial Writing
The Danger of a Single Short Story: Reality, Fiction and Metafiction in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's "Jumping Monkey Hill"2018 •
Studies in American Fiction
"Salvation through socialism": Conversion in the Work of Jack London and Upton Sinclair2020 •