below the surface

below the surface

Into or among the deeper aspects of something, as opposed to those that are most easily identified. When you write your book reports, please look below the surface of the text and analyze the author's stylistic choices.
See also: below, surface
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.

below/beneath the ˈsurface

what you cannot see but can only guess at or feel: She seems very calm but beneath the surface I’m sure that she’s very upset. Beneath the surface of this beautiful city there is terrible poverty and suffering, which tourists never see.
See also: below, beneath, surface
Farlex Partner Idioms Dictionary
See also:
  • below/beneath the surface
  • surface
  • beneath the surface
  • look beneath the surface
  • see (something) through rose-colored glasses
  • see through rose-colored glasses
  • see (something) through rose-coloured spectacles
  • back to basics
  • basic
  • as a whole
References in classic literature
Omean lies perhaps two miles below the surface crust of Mars.
The floor was sunk about six feet below the surface of the ground, with a low door at the gable end, extremely narrow, and partly sunk.
I was close behind her when she rose for the second time--a shadowy thing, just visible a few inches below the surface of the river.
Arrived at this stage of one hundred and sixty feet below the surface of the glacier, he peered through the twilight dimness and perceived that the chasm took another turn and stretched away at a steep slant to unknown deeps, for its course was lost in darkness.
I find that even so long ago as 1792, in a "Topographical Description of the Town of Concord," by one of its citizens, in the Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society, the author, after speaking of Walden and White Ponds, adds, "In the middle of the latter may be seen, when the water is very low, a tree which appears as if it grew in the place where it now stands, although the roots are fifty feet below the surface of the water; the top of this tree is broken off, and at that place measures fourteen inches in diameter." In the spring of '49 I talked with the man who lives nearest the pond in Sudbury, who told me that it was he who got out this tree ten or fifteen years before.
Up and down the long tank she swam, turning at the ends as you have seen captive seals turn in their tiny tanks, turning upon their backs and diving below the surface.
When we reached the edge of the pit I saw that it was very deep, and presently I realized I was soon to judge just how far it extended below the surface of the court, for he who held the rope passed it about my body in such a way that it could be released from above at any time; and then, as all the warriors grasped it, he pushed me forward, and I fell into the yawning abyss.
The sinking tug drew us far below the surface; but I had seized her the moment I struck the water, and so we went down together, and together we came up--a few yards from the U-boat.
In its subtlest operations, further, Imagination penetrates below the surface and comprehends and brings to light the deeper forces and facts--the real controlling instincts of characters, the real motives for actions, and the relations of material things to those of the spiritual world and of Man to Nature and God.
Freeview Below the Surface BBC Four, 9pm SP and Simon finally have a lead on the whereabouts of June's phone, while Philip is told that the hostages have been booby-trapped - with Yusuf threatening to detonate.
The space agency said that if the mission is successful, it would be the first time that a space probe has taken samples from below the surface of an asteroid. 
The shop owner said the man found the piece on some saltbush flats - 18 inches below the surface.
For example, take the example of "looking below the surface," a vague phrase which could be applied to thousands of different technologies.
* Below the Surface Cleaning Services--Kristen Kennedy & Michele Stutzman
Internal waves below the surface of the ocean transport large amounts of heat and salt, as well as water abundant with nutrients.