The Hollow Men

Mistah Kurtz-he dead
            A penny for the Old Guy

                        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
     
    Shape without form, shade without colour,
    Paralysed force, gesture without motion;
     
    Those who have crossed
    With direct eyes, to death’s other Kingdom
    Remember us-if at all-not as lost
    Violent souls, but only
    As the hollow men
    The stuffed men.

     
                              II

    Eyes I dare not meet in dreams
    In death’s dream kingdom
    These do not appear:
    There, the eyes are
    Sunlight on a broken column
    There, is a tree swinging
    And voices are
    In the wind’s singing
    More distant and more solemn
    Than a fading star.
     
    Let me be no nearer
    In death’s dream kingdom
    Let me also wear
    Such deliberate disguises
    Rat’s coat, crowskin, crossed staves
    In a field
    Behaving as the wind behaves
    No nearer-
     
    Not that final meeting
    In the twilight kingdom

     
                    III

    This is the dead land
    This is cactus land
    Here the stone images
    Are raised, here they receive
    The supplication of a dead man’s hand
    Under the twinkle of a fading star.
     
    Is it like this
    In death’s other kingdom
    Waking alone
    At the hour when we are
    Trembling with tenderness
    Lips that would kiss
    Form prayers to broken stone.

     
                      IV

    The eyes are not here
    There are no eyes here
    In this valley of dying stars
    In this hollow valley
    This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms
     
    In this last of meeting places
    We grope together
    And avoid speech
    Gathered on this beach of the tumid river
     
    Sightless, unless
    The eyes reappear
    As the perpetual star
    Multifoliate rose
    Of death’s twilight kingdom
    The hope only
    Of empty men.

     
                            V

     Here we go round the prickly pear
    Prickly pear prickly pear
    Here we go round the prickly pear
    At five o’clock in the morning.
     
    Between the idea
    And the reality
    Between the motion
    And the act
    Falls the Shadow
                                    For Thine is the Kingdom
     
    Between the conception
    And the creation
    Between the emotion
    And the response
    Falls the Shadow
                                    Life is very long
     
    Between the desire
    And the spasm
    Between the potency
    And the existence
    Between the essence
    And the descent
    Falls the Shadow
                                    For Thine is the Kingdom
     
    For Thine is
    Life is
    For Thine is the
     
     This is the way the world ends
    This is the way the world ends
    This is the way the world ends
    Not with a bang but a whimper.

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Analysis (ai): ”The Hollow Men” reflects the despair, apathy, and spiritual emptiness of a post-World War I society. 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. The shifting perspectives and disjointed language mirror the fragmentation and disillusionment of the post-war world.

“The Hollow Men” resonates with the modernist era, capturing the sense of alienation and existential angst prevailing in society. It reflects a loss of faith, both in traditional values and in the ability of humanity to find meaning and purpose in life.

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BlueBird75 - ← Does anyone know what the song in the beginning of Act V means? on Nov 17 2019 09:36 AM PST  Bobsaget69 - ← I completely agree with my babe Hack Jouley on her interpretation of this poem.  Her and I actually hang out on the weekends and Netflix and Chill.  on May 24 2017 11:56 AM PST  Lost Bird8 - ← The overall message is sad but appropriate for the time. This poem was made 1925. Only 7 years after World War 1 and is meant to be a World War 1 poem. The ‘scarecrows’ are the men coming back from WW1, not full of life but null, incapable of feeling emotion after what they have seen at war. This follows the story of the scarecrows shockingly well. The men are far from their prime, as after going to war they became husks without emotion. Wishing to meet death at its door as they would rather die than live another day. Retaining memories from the war, remembered as vast and empty expanse where only Cactus’ can grow. The ex-soldiers have given up on life as it was drained away during the war. 

-Thing i copied and pasted from my assignment 2023 

on Sep 05 2023 08:18 PM PST  Read more →

- ← This is where I would ask the story of redemption; If God so loved the world, will kindness be sent along side the firey wath? on Mar 29 2016 11:26 AM PST  JonHazle - ← lol act4istone wats a firey wath on Mar 31 2016 10:10 AM PST  Doglover211 - Hello world!! on Mar 21 2024 12:13 AM PST  MysticDreamer41 - Hello Doglover211 on Mar 25 2024 02:54 PM PST  

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- What a highly profound work of art. Eliot’s style was so far ahead of it’s time and is such a joy to read. It meanders along and carries you off into a wonderful place where intricacies and syllables scarcely matter. on Nov 04 2009 01:30 AM PST  - From guest Tom (contact)
Please tell me what is the poem’s meaning or what the point of it, i’m entrigued! on Jan 31 2009 10:34 PM PST  ImperfectFALLENangel - T S Eliot’s poetry is featured repeatedly in “The Taking” by Dean Koontz. As a result of reading this book, I began to entertain the idea of reading some of Eliot’s work. I thought he was a decent poet; I was wrong. He has a style to rival that of Edgar Allan Poe. This is the very DEFINITION of the term ‘masterpiece’. 

on Feb 01 2008 05:57 AM PST  Read more →

Nobody126 - this is a master piece. very true..yes , we are Hollow men on Jun 29 2007 11:55 AM PST  - From guest eamarti (contact)
One of my favourite poems of all time. I remember reading it in high school and it was only recently that I understood what the hollow men were. Has amazing depth and very clever use of language.Love the way he uses repetiition to enhance his point – brilliant. 

on Jun 21 2007 03:00 PM PST  Read more →

SeanJ - Good call, that’s along the lines of most critical interpretation of Heart Of Darkness (though I could site sources and make an arguement against it). Either way, I think the footnote is itself inaccurate through its speculation. I’ll take care of it.

SeanJ – OP Researcher. on Oct 01 2005 11:00 AM PST  - I take extreme exception to the first foot note regarding “Mistah Kurtz”. That is a complete misreading of “Heart of Darkness” (a work of genius if there ever was one). Kurtz was not corrupted by “primitive” Africans because of his weakness. In reading the work, it is clear that Kurtz’s own “civilization” is indeed what is barbaric. Pay attention to how whites treat the Africans throughout the book. Indeed, Kurtz’s behavior is just an extreme extension of what the whites were doing in the Belgian Congo in general, and it was not an exception to an otherwise “civilized” endeavor. This is one of Conrad’s main points, and this is one of the huge ideas that FF Coppala captured so masterfully in the film adaptation “Apocolypse Now”. 

on Oct 01 2005 03:27 AM PST  Read more →

Touchof1der - I have not read this piece in such a very long time. I am still just as entralled with it today as I was when I first read it. I had completely forgotten this! 
♥ Kimberly on Jan 28 2005 07:37 AM PST  Mr. Numi Who- - My Impression:
People lost in the world of commerce become ‘quiet and meaningless 
As wind in dry grass’ and when they speak it is with empty mind, as in ‘rat’s feet over broken glass, in our dry cellar’… and Joseph Conrad’s ‘Heart of Darkness’- very poetic prose…
Edited on Jan 28, 7:05 p.m.because ‘…of a penchant for fiddling…’.

on Jan 27 2005 01:34 PM PST  Read more →

- Read this in the 10th grade and loved it.. especially hearing T.S. Eliot himself reading it.. we never let that go as a laugh… He says it in monotone but when he gets to the prickly pear.. well, we all had a good laugh. Love this poem. One of my all time faves

*~Rosey~*  

on Sep 17 2004 10:52 AM PST  Read more →

- I have bits of this written on my wall. It’s one of my favorites of his. I mean, DANG it’s beautiful. The lyrical-ness of it just gets me every time. I think I’m gonna go read it now.

+digs up battered old copy+ heh…. on Sep 08 2004 11:34 AM PST  Silverarm - After reading Heart of Darkness, my English professor was definitely trying to push this poem on this. Completely unnecessary, as I’m a huge fan of Eliot’s poetry anyway… I just couldn’t pass by this poem without throwing up a huge shout-out to the author of my favorite poem (not this one, but “Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”) 

on Jun 09 2004 02:07 AM PST  Read more →

- I can remember reading this as a literature assignment in my senior year of high school or either my first year of college.

There is so much depth in this poem that it needed much explaination for me then, and now. I am glad to see the authors comments. They help to anaylize the poem. The form and structure is that of free verse, and is well formatted for the rendering of such a wondrous word tapestry. This poem has inspired me to write something with this type of depth. Let the muse surface. I thank you Mr. Eliot for your superb guidence. 

on Jun 05 2004 04:33 PM PST  Read more →

Myron Lysenko - i remember doing this poem in high school when i was a teenager…many years ago…the final section is the one i remember most vividly from those days …& readiung it again tonight, saw just what a wonderful piece of poetry it is… 

thanks for rekindling this…prufrock was my favourite poem for many years… 

on Jul 11 2003 11:17 PM PST  Read more →

Judas Denied - Eliot rocks!!! That said, I have to say the fifth section of this poem is what really truly endears it to me. The somewhat apathetic, nonchalant tone at the beginning that drifts into madness is what really grabs me in this piece. The last two lines are by far(in my opinion) the most profound things I have ever read. I first read this piece in eleventh grade and have since committed it to memory. There is something in it that rings so true to me that it almost makes me choke. /”We are the hollow men. We are the stuffed men.”/ Beautiful to me, and his sources for this piece only make the abstract nature of it more concrete. 

on Jul 11 2003 09:49 PM PST  Read more →

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