Laskas gave life to the "Underworld"

"Underworld" is probably my favorite article we have read thus far. Laskas took a subject that most would find boring and "out of date" (because most people have no idea we are still mining for coal) and gave it life. Coal mines are pretty lifeless places - dark, dreary, and literally lurking near the footsteps of death. That is until you really take a second to look at the things far from lifeless in a coal mine - people. Laskas really makes her readers appreciate what these men do. She makes it clear that they don't have to be there, they just are. Through an enormous amount of dialogue and description, Laskas turns a forgotten, eery profession into one that some might envy. She doesn't really capture the envious parts of the job itself, but what she does capture is the relationships these men have formed. She, herself turns out to be living proof of the relationships that grow out of the unique experience of working 50 stories down into the dark earth.

Throughout the entire article, I felt as if I was right there with Laskas, walking like a hunch-back and listening to these surprisingly vibrant men talk as if they weren't working under a million upon million pounds of rock that could come crashing down at any moment. In the dialogues she witnessed and was a part of, Laskas is able to capture how ordinary these men are - if the mine setting was removed, no one would know that these men worked in one.

Not only does Laskas have "i-felt-like-i-was-there" description and dialogue, she also adds in a lot of humor. This also brings a coal mining story to life. She seems to incorporate the very sarcastic sense of humor of the miners into her own description. It gives a coal mine a whole new atmosphere to imagine. Because of her very colloquial language, I have a completely different perspective about coal mines - mines aren't full of people who can't get a job anywhere else, they are full of people who don't mind getting their hands a little dirtier than usual to make a better living.

I think one of the main reasons Laskas was included in BAMW was because she took a seemingly dull topic and gave it some life - maybe even brought it back to life for those of you who thought coal mining was a dead profession.