SOURCE: Rosendale, Steven. “In Search of Left Ecology's Usable Past: The Jungle, Social Change, and the Class Character of Environmental Impairment.” In The Greening of Literary Scholarship: Literature, Theory, and the Environment, edited by Steven Rosendale, pp. 59-76. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2002.

In the following essay, Rosendale explores Sinclair's use of landscape as symbolism of class status in The Jungle.

When it comes to genius, to beauty, dignity, and true power of mind, I cannot see that there is any chance for them to survive in the insane hurly-burly of metropolitan life. If I wanted qualities such as these in human beings, I would surely transfer them to a different environment. And maybe that is what Providence was planning for me to understand and to do in the world. At any rate, it is what I am trying to do, and is my final reaction to...