The Hollow Men
Mistah Kurtz—he dead![1]
A penny for the Old Guy![2]
I.
We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw.[3] Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and motionless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats’ feet over broken glass[4]
In our dry cellar
Shape without form, shade without color,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion;[5]
Those who have crossed
With direct eyes[6], to death’s other Kingdom[7]
Remember us-if at all- not as lost
Violent souls[8], but only
As the hollow men
The stuffed men.
II.
Eyes I dare not meet in dreams[9]
In death’s dream kingdom[10]
These do not appear:
There, the eyes are
Sunlight on a broken column[11]
There, in 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[12]
In death’s dream kingdom
Let me also wear
Such deliberate disguises
Rat’s coat, crowskin, crossed staves[13]
In a field
Behaving as the wind behaves[14]
No nearer—
Not that final meeting
In the twilight kingdom[15]
III.
This is the dead land
This is cactus land[16]
Here the stone images
Are raised, here they receive
The supplication of a dead man’s hand[17]
Under the twinkle of a fading star.[18]
It is like this[19]
In death’s other kingdom
Waking alone
At the hour when we are
Trembling with tenderness
Lips that would kiss
From prayers to broken stone.[20]
IV.
The eyes are not here[21]
There are no eyes here
In this valley of dying stars
In this hollow valley
This broken jaw[22] of our last kingdoms
In this last of meeting places
We grope together
And avoid speech
Gathered on this beach of the tumid river[23]
Sightless, unless
The eyes reappear
As the perpetual star[24]
Multifoliate rose[25]
Of death’s twilight kingdom
The hope only[26]
Of empty men.
V.
Here we go round the prickly pear[27]
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[28]
For Thine[29] is the Kingdom
Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And response
Falls the shadow
Life is very long[30]
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[31]
This is the way the world ends[32]
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.[33]
Footnote 1: Mistah Kurtz, in Conrad’s novel Heart of Darkness, was an agent of ivory in Africa. He was associated with cruel, heartless colonizers. Eliot thinks that such persons were better than hollow, inactive men of modern society.
Footnote 2: The Epigraph refers to the Gun Powder Plot hatched by Guy Fawkes. Guy was a notorious Catholic who plotted to blow the British Parliament on 5th November, 1605. He, however was caught and hanged. From then on 5th November every year children collect money calling “A penny for the old Guy”, and burn his effigy amid firecrackers. Eliot insinuates that notoriety is better than inactive, idle life.
Footnote 3: like the effigy of Guy, made of straw
Footnote 4: unemotional, inactive
Footnote 5: spiritually barren, the hollow men are like effigies or without vitality of life
Footnote 6: self-scrutiny, necessary for salvation
Footnote 7: a higher spiritual state
Footnote 8: Kurtz and Guy were notorious men of violent souls, but hollow men are inactive and worthless, and hence, vigorous people consider them worse then Kurtz and Guy.
Footnote 9: The hollow men or modern unreligious men are afraid to look into the eyes of Charon, the ferryman, who transfers the soul to other world after death, and so, can’t think of crossing the river Leathe.
Footnote 10: life-in-death condition, the life of modern men
Footnote 11: day-dreams which remain unattained as distant stars
Footnote 12: fear of death
Footnote 13: desire to escape from the struggles of the world
Footnote 14: indistinct activities, not governed by the hollow men's won will
Footnote 15: Hollow men’s fear of death. The line refers to Dante’s meeting with Beatrice in the place between Paradise and Purgatory. Dante was a religious man and so, he could look into the eyes of Beatrice whose eyes were like stars.
Footnote 16: desert-like barren land
Footnote 17: Hollow men worship stone idols in vain because they are not god at all. ‘Dead man’s hand’ refers to futile acts of worship.
Footnote 18: The modern men have no respect for religion. So they find no divine guidance. Here is an implied reference to the star’s showing the way to the Magi.
Footnote 19: The hollow men are perplexed to think whether the world of spirit is different from their world where they enjoy physical love.
Footnote 20: The fear of death makes them unnerved, and frustrates even the pleasure of love-making.
Footnote 21: ‘direct eyes’, or the eyes of self-scrutiny are absent in hollow valley
Footnote 22: The reference is to the Biblical story of Samson who killed thousands of Philistines with a jawbone of an ass. When he was thirsty God cleaved a hollow place in the jaw from where water came out and saved Samson. But in ‘this hollow valley’ there is no life-giving water.
Footnote 23: the gathering of the dead men by the underworld-river Leathe where they have to wait for Charon to be transported to the other world
Footnote 24: The reference is to Dante’s finding of the light of perpetual star in the eyes of Beatrice.
Footnote 25: refers to the angels clustered around Beatrice
Footnote 26: The hollow men hope to be guided by some divine power, as Dante was guided by Beatrice’s eyes.
Footnote 27: The distortion of the nursery rhyme “Here we go round the mulberry bush” brings out the useless motion, boredom and frustration of modern men.
Footnote 28: The shadow refers to the impediment in the way of soul’s craving for God.
Footnote 29: Refers to death, which has been personified in order to convey its importance in the lives of hollow men. It may also refer to Charon who is associate with death.
Footnote 30: inactive, indecisive life seems long and useless
Footnote 31: Modern men’s inability to utter a prayer which is due to lack of belief and exhaustion with material life.
Footnote 32: The distorted form of the nursery rhyme “This is the way we clap our hand” parodies the Gun Powder Plot. Guy wanted to end the world with explosion. But ironically, his own effigy burns away silently every year.
Footnote 33: In the world of despair there is no bang but only low lament of dying soul, unable to die in peace.
What I Feel
Eliot’s ‘The Hollow Men’ deals with the theme of spiritual crisis in modern materialistic world. Here he presents the picture of an imaginative world which he calls ‘death’s dream kingdom’. Its dwellers have been called the ‘hollow men’ meaning that their soul is dead because there is no existence of respect for religion. They are ‘shape without form, shade without colour’. Those who can cross ‘death’s other Kingdom’, i. e., a higher spiritual state than that of ‘death’s dream Kingdom’ watch with ‘dirt eyes’ or with a self-scrutiny required to attain this higher state the hopeless hollow men. The hollow men long for death and wait to be ferried across the water of death by the ferryman, Charon, in hell. Some of them want to assume the disguise of scarecrow which is dehumanizing and emphasize their hollowness, moral degradation and self-contempt verging on despair. They turn back desperately to their memories of the world only to find a ‘waste land’—the sun shining down on a fallen tower, wind blowing the sand and distant voices. They realize the futility of romantic passion, and aspire towards a glimpse of the divine, but they are unable to attain those because of their spiritual drought. In section V of the poem the expression ‘falls the shadow’ appears thrice which suggest paralysis of the will of the hollow men which renders any action impossible; the hollow men go round the ‘prickly pear’ suggesting the same world of winter and death. The poem ends with ‘This is the way the world ends’ which is a parody of the nursery rhyme ‘This is the way we clap our hand’. The implication is that the world of the hollow men have no gaiety or ‘bang’ but only the whimpering groans of the souls dying, but unable to die.
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