Digging Themes

"Digging" certainly takes skill. Plus, you need a tool – a spade or shovel to be exact. For our speaker, his only tool is the pen. It might not seem like much at first, but when you consider the...

We see three generations of men from the same family in "Digging." The speaker is the youngest, and he reflects on his father and grandfather. We see the similarities through the generations (they...

It's a family affair, guys. The speaker of "Digging" struggles with his identity in relationship to his family. His father and grandfather were farmers and they valued manual labor. The speaker, ho...

The speaker's sense of place, family, and identity are all wrapped up in sensory memories of the natural world. He remembers the textures, smells, sounds, and, of course, sights of growing up with...

Without a doubt, the speaker in "Digging" admires his father and grandfather. He admires their work ethic and skill. You get a sense that our speaker wants so much to be like them, even though he n...