In The Mine by George Orwell

In this story we learn about the perception of mines and miners. The growing England’s industry needed a great quantity of coal, the main fuel at those days. So the activity of extracting coal was one of the most important for the British economy. The work was very hard in the mines, and Orwell wanted readers, living in cities, knew all about that because, as a member of Communist Party, he was very concerned about worker’s welfare and rights.

The Orwell’s purpose in writing this piece was to make aware people about the hardness of working in a mine because the bad conditions of this activity, the lack of rights, and the illness produced by dust coal. The miners were breathing an air plenty of coal dust because they hadn’t any protection and mines lacked of efficient ventilation. So he showed that miners were breathing that polluted air during all their work days. Besides, as the ceiling height was so little in the galleries, the miners, who were strong but small, were obliged to work kneeling what made his work harder, almost unbearable. The height of galleries was just the height of coal vein. Orwell speaks too about the difficulties of walking through the mine for reaching the vein where face workers have their task. For him, a very tall man, it was really difficult to walk in such a small height, and needed to take frequently a rest for stretching himself. But miners, strong but small, could walk more quickly.

As there weree a lot of words only used in a mine, “Fillers”, for example who are the miners that load the belt with the coal detached by others miners, the face workers, Orwell was obliged to describe those activities. This is a vocabulary typical in a mine and it’s not difficult to translate it to other languages, if you know this jargon, of course.