Despite its poignancy, this commentary on the experience of alienation was in some ways un- remarkable. Oppressed workers elsewhere have been apt to see the mine as a predator, the industrial workplace as a tomb (see, for example, Van Onselin 1976; Gordon 1977; Nash 1979; Taussig 1980; cf. also D. H. Lawrence 1922; Eliade 1962). What is more, our attempt to pursue the exegesis further proved fruitless. We were simply unable to elicit statements that tied exploitation to a coherent notion of class antagonism or even racial conflict. This, it seemed, had been one of those rare moments when otherwise mute experience found voice in a fortuitous clutch of images.