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Eliot uses imagery of decay and lifelessness to portray the hollow existence of these individuals, who lack purpose, emotion, and connection. Compared to Eliot's earlier work, such as "The Waste Land," the poem is more fragmented and pessimistic.
Context. Resources. “The Hollow Men” is a poem by the American modernist poet T.S. Eliot, first published in 1925. Uncanny and dream-like, “The Hollow Men” describes a desolate world, populated by empty, defeated people. Though the speaker describes these people as “dead” and the world they inhabit as the underworld (“death’s ...
- Epigraph
- Section One
- Section Two
- Section Three
- Section Four
- Section Five
The poem begins with an epigraph or a written statement after the death of Mistah Kurtz, an ivory trader from Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. His connection to the poem likely comes from a quote describing him as being hollow. He does not have a moralcompass to guide him or the instincts of a decent human being. The second epigraph is slightly m...
Stanza One
The poem begins in the first stanza with the speaker, who is considered to be the collective “Hollow Men” He informs the reader of this fact by stating that “We” are both stuffed and hollow. They are like scarecrows, appearing like men but with a “Headpiece filled with straw.” Their voices, like the rest of their lives and the setting, are dry. They try to speak to one another, but everything they say is “meaningless.” The speaker ends the stanza by comparing their words to the wind and the w...
Stanzas Two and Three
He goes on to refer to himself and all those like him as being “without” true form. They are a “shade without colour” or a “gesture without motion.” This is how purposeless their words and thoughts are, if they even have any. The speaker also describes a scenario in which someone who knows them crossed into their land. Eliot’s speakers describe how this person if they remembered the Hollow Men, would know them “not as lost” or “Violent” but simply as “hollow men” or “stuffed men.” They are fi...
Stanza One
The second section of the poem begins with a ten-line stanza. Here, the speaker describes another feature of the Hollow Men. They are unable to look anyone directly in the eyes. In particular, they are worried about the eyes of “death’s dream kingdom.” This is the first reference to Heaven. They do not mention it by name, but it’s clear that the souls which rise there worry them. This is one of the best examples of Eliot tying together different images to produce a larger result. It is unclea...
Stanzas Two and Three
In the next stanzas, the speaker asks that the souls from Heaven stay away from the Hollow Men. They do not wish to be any nearer to Heaven or to any of those whose eyes might tell them something about themselves they don’t want to know. This stanza ends with another interesting image. This time the men are compared in earnest to scarecrows. They are trying to disguise themselves as something they aren’t but are quite close to actually being. The wind moves them, just as it would a scarecrow,...
Stanza One
The setting which hosts the Hollow Men is further described in the third section. Just as they are broken, dry, and barren, so too is the “dead land.” It is a desert filled with cacti and “stone images.” These stones have been raised in order to beg for Heaven’s help. It is a small gesture that seems futile underneath “the twinkle of a fading star.” The star is very distant, far out of reach, but it still represents some kind of hope. That is, until it finishes fading.
Stanza Two
The Hollow Men ask in the second stanza of the third section if “death’s other kingdom” is like theirs. They appear to be in some kind of purgatory, between life and death. This hope is minimal, and the best they can envision is a world where people are somewhat happier but still pray to “broken” stones. Those in the other kingdom of death are better off, but not by much. They still walk alone at the same time as the Hollow Men do but are not completely alone.
Stanza One and Two
In the first stanza of the fourth section, the speaker returns to the image of the eyes. They are unable to follow men to their “ valley of death.” This references the popular Psalm23 regarding “walking through the valley of the shadow of death.” In this instance, though, the men do not have God to comfort them, as the Psalm states. Once again, one comes across the word “broken” in this stanza. In this instance, it is attached to the phrase, “this broken jaw of our lost kingdoms.” It is uncle...
Stanza Three
The third stanza is a great example of Eliot’s desire to reference other literary works. This time he speaks on the “Multifoliate rose” in Dante Alighieri’s Paradiso, the third book of The Divine Comedy. The rose has many petals and is a stand-in for heaven. The kingdom is a rose of God’s grace, good virtues, and angels. It is not until the eyes come, reform themselves into a star, that the Hollow Men are going to be able to see again. This is when their hope will truly return. The men do not...
StanzaOne and Two
The fifth section is different than those which came before it. The stanzas are constructed in the form of a song, perhaps sung by the Hollow Men themselves. They are singing a version of “Here we go round the mulberry bush,” but rather than a bush, they have a “prickly pear” cactus, common to their desert landscape. Eliot states that the men dance at “five o’clock in the morning.” The next stanza explains that all along, the thing which has kept them from changing their own situation was “th...
Stanza Three and Four
The third and fourth stanzas of the fifth section follow a similar pattern to the second. They are other lists of ephemeral places where “the Shadow” hides. It is between “conception / And the creation” as well as “the desire / And the spasm.” All of these comparisons are interesting in themselves, but in general, they bring one to the conclusion that “the Shadow” keeps the beginning from leading to the end. In between these two stanzas is the line, “Life is very long.” This seems to be a sim...
Stanza Five and Six
In the fifth stanza, Eliot uses three more fragmented lines. These are parts of the previous fragments that appeared between the longer stanzas. They are included in order to emphasize the speakers’ broken lives. The lines have no endings, as if the degradation of their situation is progressing even further. The final four lines are perhaps the most famous Eliot ever wrote. They come down to the phrase, “This is the way the world ends / Not with a bang but a whimper.” The phrase is connected...
- Female
- October 9, 1995
- Poetry Analyst And Editor
"The Hollow Men" (1925) is a poem by the modernist writer T. S. Eliot. Like much of his work, its themes are overlapping and fragmentary, concerned with post–World War I Europe under the Treaty of Versailles, hopelessness, religious conversion, redemption and, some critics argue, his failing marriage with Vivienne Haigh-Wood Eliot.
- T. S. Eliot
- 1925
‘The Hollow Men’ is a major poem written by Eliot between The Waste Land in 1922 and his conversion to Christianity in 1927. The ‘Hollow Men’ are trapped in a limbo world… Read More
Eliot employs two similes in describing the “dried voices” of the men as they “whisper together.” He compares them first to the sound of “wind in dry grass” and then to the sound of “rats’ feet” running “over broken glass” in a “dry cellar.”
the hollow men. I We are the hollow men we are the stuffed men leaning together headpiece filled with straw. Alas! Our dried voices, when we whisper together are quiet and meaningless as wind in dry grass or rats' feet over broken glass in our dry cellar.
