T Eliot The Poem

3 .
An Essay on Poetry
Analysis of The Hollow Men, written by Thomas Stearns Eliot.

Mistah Kurtz he dead.
A penny for the Old Guy.
I
1
10
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 color,
Paralyzed force, gesture without motion;
15
Those who have crossed

3With direct eyes, to deaths other kingdom
Remember us if at all- not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men,
The stuffed men.
II
20
25
Eyes I dare not meet in dreams

In deaths 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 winds singing
More distant and more solemn
Than a fading star.
Let me be no nearer
30
35
In deaths dream kingdom.

Let me also wear
Such deliberate disguises:
Rats coat, crowskin, crossed staves
In a field
Behaving as the wind behaves
No nearerNot that final meeting
In the twilight kingdom.
III
40
45
50
This is the dead land,

This is the cactus land.
Here the stone images
Are raised, here they receive
The supplication of a dead mans hand
Under the twinkle of a fading star.
Is it like this,
In deaths other kingdom
Walking alone
At the hour when we are
Trembling with tenderness.
Lips that would kiss
Form prayers to broken stone.
IV
55
60
65
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 deaths twilight kingdom.
The hope only
Of empty men.
V
70
Here we go round the prickly pear,

Prickly pear, prickly pear.
Here we go round the prickly pear
At five oclock in the morning.
Between the idea
And the reality,
75
Between the motion

And the act,
Falls the Shadow.
For Thine is the Kingdom.
80
Between the conception

And the creation,
Between the emotion
And the response,
Falls the Shadow.
Life is very long.
85
90
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
95
This is the way the world ends.

Not with a bang but a whimper.
Theme- psychological state of humanity in the twentieth century
Syntax-The poem consists of five stanzas ,98 lines

- Rhyme This is not a particulary `rhyme . free verse," because it doesn't have a regular meter or
rhyme scheme. The poem is almost like a speech or a dramatic monologue delivered by a character,
the character being all of the Hollow Men
For example, the scheme in the first stanza is AABCABDCCB. Although the last line could have
ended with the two Cs,
Devices
Repetition-. The repetition of the words hollow, stuffed lines 1,15,55 and kingdomLINES
13,20,30,45,55,65,75 enforce the concept of lack and emptiness. In lines 1-2 we see the first
repetition in the poem. In this case, were dealing with a structural repetition (we are the hollow men;
we are the stuffed men. in the first lines of part III (this is the dead land; this is the cactus land) and
part IV (the eyes are not here; there are no eyes here) This proves that the author reinforces, through
repetition, the description of states and existences using the verb to be in Present Simple.The last
stanza
Not with a bang but a whimper.
Symbols-the image of the hollow men, stuffed men leaning together, headpiece filled with
straw reminds us of that of standing -not walking- corpses, immobile dying bodies (lets look at lines
11-12). This, of course, possesses a tight relationship with the image of the scarecrow (let me also
wear such deliberate disguises, rats coat, crowskin, crossed staves in a field, lines 31-34), as it is an
immobile, inanimate anthropomorphic figure fulfilled with straw.
At five oclock in the morning, the only clear reference to time in The Hollow Men has a powerful
symbolism. This time of midnight has always been considered as the hour of resurrection
Tone-despiration, because the hollow men are they are stuffed and hollow; they are meaningless;
Conclusion
The end will be not with a apocalyptic catastrophe as in the Bible but through mankind
who allow themselves slowly decay, degrade, exhaust and be empty at the core.
Setting- The Hollow Men live in a desert nether world that looks like it could be in outer space.
Everything around them is bone
Summary
The two epigraphs to the poem, "Mistah Kurtz he dead" and "A penny for the Old Guy", are allusions
to Conrad's character and to Guy Fawkes, attempted arsonist of the English house of Parliament, and
his straw-man effigy that is burned each year in the United Kingdom on Guy Fawkes Night.
The first stanza begins with we are the hollow men and we are the stuffed men, two extremely
contrasting statements.
Part I: "We are the hollow men- We are the stuffed men" : We are seemingly stuffed but
in the depth of our souls we are empty. The hollow men are Eliot's modern, empty
corrupted man. "Leaning together/ Headpiece filled with straw": We are like Guy Fawkes
effigy; our heads are filled with despair, delusions but empty at the core. The hollow men
are like walking corpses whose minds are empty and detached from reality and life. They
are alive but they are also experiencing death at the same time.
Part II: "Eyes I dare not meet in dreams in death's dream kingdom": In those lines the
speaker fears facing the death the eyes of death even in his dreams. We, hollow men,
can only encounter with the eyes' symbols like "sunlight on a broken column" which
gives broken light "a tree" and "voices in the wind". All of these are perceived indirectly.
To reach the direct eyes are more distant and more solemn than the fading star which
represents remoteness from reality, especially spiritual reality. In short, he fears the
meet with direct vision of death. "Let me be no nearer in death's dream kingdom": The
speaker doesn't want to come any closer to death kingdom in other words he doesn't
want to be near to death.
Part III: In this part there is a representation the world hollow men live in. The narrator
defines his world as waste land like desert which symbolize emptiness where "there is
dead land, cactus land / Here the stone images" .Stone (lifeless) images of spiritual is
meant here.
Part IV: " The eyes are not here/ There are no eyes here" In this part the narrator
become progressively indifferent to the eyes of dead in contrast to previous lines of the
poem. The fading star in previous stanzas becomes "dying star". The darkness increases
as the shadow of the death in the hollow valley of death emerges.
Mirvete Hyseni

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3 .

Analysis of The Hollow Men, written by Thomas Stearns Eliot.

We are the hollow men,

Those who have crossed

Eyes I dare not meet in dreams

In deaths dream kingdom.

This is the dead land,

The eyes are not here,

Here we go round the prickly pear,

Between the motion

Between the conception

Between the desire

This is the way the world ends.

Theme- psychological state of humanity in the twentieth century

Syntax-The poem consists of five stanzas ,98 lines

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