Pits, Holes and Trenches

A hole is an opening or hollow in a material or surface. A pit usually extends downwards into the ground, while a trench is a long, relatively narrow excavation. These shapes change what can be crossed, where someone can stand and how one place can be reached from another.

An opening may provide access, interrupt a route or contain someone below the surrounding level. Its depth, width, sides and contents all affect the situation. Being beside a hole, at its edge and inside it describe different positions.

Types and Characteristics

• Pits: Excavations or depressions that may be used for extraction, storage or disposal. Some are deliberately constructed, while others occur naturally.
• Postholes: Openings prepared to receive posts. Their function is to make space for something that will provide support above ground.
• Trenches: Extended excavations used for purposes including drainage, foundations, buried services and defence.
• Ditches: Channels or depressions that can carry water or help mark a boundary.
• Burrows: Excavated passages and chambers used by animals. The visible entrance may reveal little of the space beyond it.
• Holes through a surface: Openings that connect two sides, such as a hole in a wall or floor.

The opening and the space it leads into are separate features. A small entrance can lead into a large chamber, and a wide pit may have no convenient route up its sides.

Literary Examples

In Edgar Allan Poe's The Pit and the Pendulum, a prisoner explores a dark chamber without understanding its layout. A stumble near the edge of a pit reveals a danger he had not seen. Later, changes to the chamber threaten to force him towards that opening. Edgar Allan Poe Society: The Pit and the Pendulum

The pit remains in the same chamber while the narrator's knowledge of it and his position relative to it change. The episode can be read in terms of uncertain footing, restricted movement and a danger whose extent is initially unknown.

Close reading: entering is different from controlling the descent

The narration follows Alice’s unexpectedly prolonged descent after the rabbit-hole turns sharply downwards:

Down, down, down. Would the fall never come to an end?

Narration centred on Alice’s experience, Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Chapter I, “Down the Rabbit-Hole”.

The repeated direction provides no measure of distance and no visible destination. Alice has chosen to follow the Rabbit, but that choice does not amount to control over the later fall. The surrounding passage makes room for looking, handling objects and talking while she continues to descend, separating movement from progress towards a known goal. Her guesses about distance also expose the difference between possessing geographical vocabulary and being able to locate herself. The episode in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland contrasts with the prisoner’s discovery of a dangerous opening in Poe’s story above. A hole may be encountered as an entrance, a continuing passage or a threat beside one’s feet; those positions invite different questions.

In Religion

Jeremiah 38:6-13 describes Jeremiah being lowered into a cistern containing mud, where he sinks. Ebed-melech arranges his rescue and lowers cloths for Jeremiah to place beneath the ropes before he is pulled out. Jeremiah 38:6-13

The account includes descent, an unsupportive surface and assistance from above. It also gives attention to the means of lifting: the ropes connect Jeremiah to his rescuers, while the cloths cushion their contact with his body.

Idioms

• Dig yourself into a hole: Make a difficult situation worse through your own actions or explanations.
• In a hole: In difficulty, often with few immediately available options.
• A bottomless pit: Something that seems capable of consuming resources without limit.
• Pick holes in something: Search for faults or weaknesses in an argument, account or proposal.
• Paper over the cracks: Conceal problems without resolving what causes them.
• In the trenches: Directly involved in difficult, demanding or routine work.
• Dig in your heels: Resist pressure to change a decision or position.
• Entrenched views: Opinions that are firmly established and difficult to change.
• Fall into a pitfall: Encounter a difficulty or hidden disadvantage.

Homophones

Hole / whole: A hole is an opening or absence within something. Whole describes something complete or entire. The similarity in sound brings together two different descriptions of completeness.

Related Pages

Wells, Dungeons, Tunnels, Falling, Swamps.

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