HOLLOW MAN

( T.S Eliot )
BY GROUP#1
BS-ENGLISH
7TH SEMESTER
Starting With the Poem

The Hollow Men published in 1925, is often cited as being an appendage to

Eliot’s monumental work, The Waste Land, for both poems written exclusively
post World War 1, revolve around his dismay and disillusionment regarding the
depletion and speedy mutation of religious hope and love.
The Background

The disintegration of Victorian ideals, the ordeal of World War 1and the
subsequent collapse of the British Empire resulted in the emergence of a
fragmented world where nothing seemed real; men with fractured hopes,
crumbled notions appeared to be empty or “hollow.” The modernist writers made
a bid to capture this incoherence and flux through their verse and thus we have
masterpieces as “The Hollow Men,” where Eliot presents the agitated psyche of
the generation using a collage of terse dialogues, poignant images, and scholarly
ideas
Meaning of the First EPIGRAPH
• Mistah Kurtz—he dead.

• This epigraph, a quote uttered by a servant in Conrad’s celebrated novel,

“Heart of Darkness,” is a revelation of the death of one of the prominent
characters, “Kurtz,” who in the novel gains prosperity by amassing the
continent’s vast natural resources. Eliot’s deliberate invocation of vile Kurtz
thus serves as a fitting precursor of his exploration of the complex, soul¬ less
characteristics of his subject, the Hollow Men; Kurtz is amoral just as the
Hollow Men are.
MEANING OF THE SECOND
EPIGRAPH
• A penny for the Old Guy

• This particular epigraph can be explained in two ways. Apparently, the poet
refers to the usual question asked by English children concerning Guy Fawkes
Day celebration (Nov 5), when they need money to burn the straw figures of
Guy Fawkes (a Roman Catholic, whose attempt to blow up the Parliament
building in 1605 was discovered). But going by ancient Greek Myth, this
question seems to be the optimistic expression of a soul, anxious to pay a coin
to the ferryman of the underworld, “Charon,” who would aid him to progress
through the world of the dead.
Interpretation of these two epigraphs

• If the first prepares the reader towards a band of spiritually sterile hollow men
(as Kurtz), the second one suggests that they are also physically empty.
Central Idea

• The Hollow Men are a group of emotionally and spiritually sterile figures who
inhabit an arid land and avoid the “Eyes” of souls that dwell in Heaven. Their
feeble wish to gain access to “death’s twilight kingdom” is in vain as they are
doomed to perish between life and death. As such, they look forward to a
termination that is ignominious and insignificant
SUMMARY
• The poem begins with two epigraphs alluding to two examples of "Hollow
Men," one from fiction, the other from history. Then we are introduced to the
main characters: a group of scarecrows leaning together. These Hollow Men
narrate the poem in a chorus. They lament their condition: their bodies
paralyzed, their language meaningless. On the other side of a mythical river,
dead ancestors see and judge the men. One of the Hollow Men relates his fear
of meeting the judging eyes of the dead while he is sleeping. They attempt to
pray, but fail. In a desert valley on the bank of an overflowing river under
dying stars, the Hollow Men waver between religious faith and despair. They
dance around a cactus reciting a perverse version of a child’s nursery rhyme.
Then in an antiphonic parody of a Christian worship service, a priest speaks
and a congregation answers. The Shadow of death paralyzes all action and the
language of the chorus disintegrates as they attempt to recite the Lord’s
Prayer. The poem and the world ends an anticlimactic whimper.
CRITICAL ANALYSIS
OF POEM
THEMES
Living transformed to mere survival

It is through the depiction of the Hollow Men’s miserable

existence that Eliot poignantly advocates the riveting truth
that modern life post World War 1 scenario wasn’t living in
the truest sense, but commonplace compromise with
fragmented beliefs and ideals. Consequently, the Hollow
Men inhabit an arid land (dead land), where nothing grows
except cacti. They are neither audible (dried voices,
whisper) nor can they say anything with reason (Are quiet
and meaningless) except a deeply rooted bemoaning of their
fallen state through the solitary ejaculation, “Alas.”
Failure
• Failure is a major theme in "The Hollow Men." Eliot
collects examples of failure in the figures of Kurtz
and Fawkes, who both failed at living an anarchic
life. He also explores it under other subthemes:
paralysis, or a failure of will; impotence, or a failure
to procreate; malaise, or a failure of imagination; and
amorality, or a failure of faith. Failure is also
something "The Hollow Men" demonstrates
poetically: the syntax breaks up and the voices in the
poem, become unable to complete a prayer. The ritual
of reciting poetry fails; language itself fragments and
fails. The poem ends with the world ending, another
failure, and it ends poorly, in the embarrassing sound
of a whimper.
Faith
Faith is explored in "The Hollow Men" through contrasts. First,
there’s the contrast between the Hollow Men themselves, who are
paralyzed by amorality, and those who have crossed the river into the
afterlife with “direct eyes,” representing faith and moral clarity.
Then, there’s a contrast between the arid desert, the “dead land” of
faithlessness, and the dream state in sleep, where the narrator has
access to a distant, fading world of faith, represented by the figures
of the wind singing, the tree swinging, and the fading star. The poem
intensifies with expressions of religious desire, and a simultaneous
opposing resurgence of despair. Prayers are directed to a broken
stone; the vision of the Christian “perpetual star, Multifoliate rose”
becomes “The hope only/Of empty men.” The final word, whimper,
describes a sound, expressing the paradox of praying for salvation
without enough faith to form a word
Passivity
• The Hollow Men have a bad case of "the Shadow." Like when you
sit down to do your homework, and you can't bring yourself do
open your book, you too can blame the Shadow. But the Hollow
Men have it even worse. They can't even respond to their own
emotions. The Shadow represents their cowardice and the failure of
their will. They can't even look the "eyes" in, well, the eyes. They
turn around and around like the wind and wait on the bank of a
river.
IDENTITY
• The Hollow Men all speak as one because they have the same identity: an
empty one. The words "hollow," "empty," and "stuffed" are repeated again and
again. Though we think we're dealing with flesh-and-blood people who
happen to be passive and wishy-washy, in reality we're dealing with an empty
void disguised as a person. The Hollow Men perform ritualistic actions like
prayer and have some emotions, like fear. It's important to remember, though,
that they are incapable of normal human reactions. They can't finish anything
they start. Back on earth, they might have been famous politicians or
journalists, but now they're just shells.
Prominent Literary
Devices
Image and Imagery
• Throughout the poem, the employment of befitting imagery and images create
a sense of hopelessness. The very words, “hollow men” create an image of
men who resemble corpses since they are vacant or “empty.” The vivid
imagery of “meaningless whispers” being compared to “winds in dry grass” or
“Or rats’ feet over broken glass/In our dry cellar” presents a picture of their
limitations and evokes a sense of decay.

• The lines,“Shape without form, shade without colour,/Paralyzed force, gesture

without motion;” intends to intensify the pitiable picture of modern man
• The imagery of, “crossed staves/ In a field/ Behaving as the wind behaves”
brings to mind the nondescript scarecrows that aimlessly swing according to
the wind’s movement.

• The mentioning of the “dead land” with “stone images” evokes the picture of
a desolate landscape where nothing can live.

• Finally the concluding image, “Not with a bang but with a whimper,” refers to
man’s steady descent towards darkness.
SYMBOLS

The “Eyes” initially symbolise something fearful but later they may stand as a source of hope.

• The “star” that appears to be sometimes “fading,” sometimes “dying” seems to symbolise the
prevailing condition of the Hollow Men.

• The mentioning of “death’s other kingdom,” “death’s dream kingdom,” “twilight kingdom”
possibly symbolises another realm where dead men with souls reside.

.
• The significant reference to time as at “At five o’clock in the morning”
symbolises the Hollow Men’s complete dissolution into obscurity. It is in fact,
a deliberate contradiction of the traditional hour of resurrection.

• Ultimately, “prickly pear” stands for something painful and sinister

Structure of the Poem
The poem does not seem to have any
definite meter or rhyme scheme. All the
five sections have varying length.
Figures of Speech Used
ALLUSIONS
• The first epigraph alludes to Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness.”
• The second alludes to the Gunpowder plot and perhaps to the Greek myth of
Charon
• The idea of Hollow Men alludes to Canto 3 of Dante’s “Inferno” describe a
group of people (whom Dante encounters at the gate of Hell) that roam about
aimlessly and cannot even hope of death.
• “Direct eyes” allude to the other two parts of Dante’s “Divine Comedy” where
in describing the eyes of his great love, “Beatrice” he mentions that she (being
a heavenly soul) can directly look at God.
• The “final meeting” seems to allude to the Last Judgment in Christian
thought.
• The idea of “Lips that would kiss/Form prayers to broken stone” alludes to
Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet” but the concept is reversed. Whereas in the
drama, “Juliet” claims that pilgrims use lips to chant prayers, the Hollow Men
have prayers that are vile and corrupt.
• The “Multifoliate rose” alludes to Dante’s “Paradiso” where paradise is
viewed as a flower with saints and other virtues.
• “For Thine is the Kingdom” refers to Lord’s Prayer.
SIMILE

• The “whisper” of the Hollow Men is compared to “wind in dry grass/Or rats’
feet over broken glass.”
• The Hollow Men wearing the disguises are said to behave “as the wind
behaves.”
ANTICLIMAX

• The final predicament, “not with a bang, but with a whimper” is an

anticlimax.
REPETITION

• There is ample repetition such as the lines, “We are the hollow men/We are
the stuffed men” or “This is the dead land/This is cactus land” or “Behaving
as the wind behaves.
OPPOSITION

Striking oppositions are apparent such as “idea”/ “reality,” “motion”/”act,”

“conception”/”creation” and much more