Discuss how Heaney develops the theme of "Digging" by using poetical elements.

First we need to determine what the theme of "Digging" is,
and there seems to be several opinions on this. One opinion is that the theme is
violence in Ireland, with a sub-theme of death. For violence, the metaphorical simile
comparing "pen" to "gun" is seen to be carried out in the description of the "spade,"
"the shaft / Against the inside knee was levered firmly," thereby establishing the
primary theme of violence in Ireland. For death, the grandfather is "digging down" and
the father "Bends low, coming up twenty years away," thereby establishing a thematic
link to death. A second opinion identifies the theme as the honor of all kinds of work,
equating the nobility of writing with the nobility of farming and growing
things.

A third opinion is that the theme combines joy of
self-realization with triumph over external influences. On the one hand, the poetic
speaker (who is synonymous with Heaney himself) fondly remembers and admires grandfather
and father while, on the other hand, he is also mindful of the greater circumstances of
Ireland's conflict embroiled society. The poetic elements he uses might be directed at
any of these suggested themes. Poetic elements include structure, narrative, poetic
speaker, theme, metaphor, symbols etc and differ from poetic techniques, which are the
optional choices a poet might make, such as personification, onomatopoeia, and
repetition etc.

The foundationally important element is the humorously
ironic poetic speaker's voice. It is this ironic voice that indicates how the speaker
feels about taking up a pen instead of a gun; taking up a pen instead of a spade. The
ironic voice also suggests what sort of "digging" he will do with his pen, which seems
to be the sort that exposes society while at the same time revealing his own inner
truth. In an interview referenced by href="http://www.nytimes.com/books/98/12/20/specials/heaney-bogs.html">The
New York Times, Heaney spoke of what he called Yeats' "amphibious
inner and outer life" and stated that writing poetry requires this sort of "Being in two
places at once." "Digging" fulfills being "in two places at once" by revealing Irish
society in reference to guns and spades, while revealing something of Heaney's inner
reality:

But
I've no spade to follow men like them.
Between my finger and my
thumb
The squat pen rests.
I'll dig with
it.

The structure
also confirms and develops the theme by giving the largest stanzas to reminiscence of
father and grandfather while the opening and closing stanzas direct attention to the
speaker's pen and are ironically and wittily small.