The Hollow Men by T.S. Eliot

 The Hollow Men by T.S. Eliot

Publication history 

• Like The Waste Land and Prufrock, The Hollow Men too was published in fragments.
• Part III This is the Dead Land was first published in Chapbook in November 1924 in Doris Dream Song 
• Part I We are the Hollow Men was published separately in a French periodical Commerce in 1924
• March 1925 Dial published part I We are the Hollow Men, part II Eyes I dare not meet in dreams, and part IV The Eyes are not Here 
• The final version of The Hollow Men appeared in Eliot's Poems 1909-1925, adding the final choral chant “Here we go round the prickly pear” and the two epigraphs. 

Title 

Eliot wrote that he produced the title "The Hollow Men" by combining the titles of the romance The Hollow Land by William Morris with the poem "The Broken Men" by Rudyard Kipling; but it is possible that this is one of Eliot's many constructed allusions. The title could also be theorised to originate from Shakespeare's Julius Caesar or from the character Kurtz in Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, who is referred to as a "hollow sham" and "hollow at the core". The latter is more likely since Kurtz is mentioned in one of the two epigraphs.

Epigraph: Mistah Kurtz-he dead.

Mistah Kurtz he dead: In Conrad's Heart of Darkness, this is the phrase used by the black cabin boy announcing Mr. Kurtz's death. Mr. Kurtz, a European trader, had gone into "the heart of darkness" the mysterious primitive life of the African jungle with high intentions of civilizing them, but was soon barbarized by it: "The wilderness ... found him out early. ... I think it whisper to him things about himself which he did not know--and the whisper ... proved irresistibly fascinating. It echoed loudly within him because he was hollow at the core." Despite his hollowness, however, as Marlowe the narrator of the story insists, Mr. Kurtz had been "a remarkable man." His dying whisper, "The horror! The horror" showed at least "some sort of belief. 

Epigraph: A penny for the Old Guy

"A penny for the Old Guy" is a phrase associated with Guy Fawkes Day, commemorating the failure of the Gunpowder Plot in 1605, where Guy Fawkes and his fellow conspirators attempted to blow up the Houses of Parliament. Children would traditionally carry effigies of Guy Fawkes, a conspirator in the Gunpowder Plot, and ask for money to buy fireworks using this phrase.

The burning of Guy Fawkes effigy also suggests the survival of the primitive fire festivals usually takes place at the beginning of winter. A straw effigy was burnt as a sacrificial victim to the vegetation spirit to ensure the renewal of life in Spring or as a scapegoat to get rid the community of bad luck & bad weather.

Analysis of the text: 

We are the stuffed men : An allusion to Stravinsky’s Russian ballad Petrushka. Eliot was impressed with the stylization of it as it simplified our current life into something new and strange. Eliot too adaopts the same mechanical movement through broken rhymes and half rhymes from line 1-12 to evoke a sense of futility. 

Headpiece: lack of head or intelligence 

We whisper together…glass : Lack of meaningful communication 

Dry cellar alludes to Guy Fawkes & the Gunpowder plot when the conspirators rented a cellar and loaded it with Gunpowder. But hollowmen’s cellar/body is purposeless not even potent to execute the task of evil. 

Shape without form shade without colour,

Paralyzed force, gesture without motion;

These lines alludes to Dante's Inferno iii of the souls who lived without blame or praise, those who neither supported God nor Satan, who were neither faithful nor rebellious, and thus, were rejected by both heaven and hell. They have no hope of death and they are also envious of every other lot. Mercy and Justice disdain them. Virgil told Dante to not speak of them rather to look at them and pass.

Those who have crossed

With direct eyes to death's other Kingdom

Remember us--if at all-- not as lost 15

Violent souls, but only

As the hollow men

The stuffed men.

These lines refer to the violent souls like Kurtz or Guy Fawkes who at least cross the river Acheron into for Divine Justice by Charon the demon who makes them enter his boat by beckoning them with their eyes that burn like glowing coals That light changes the dread into desire. 

These lines also allude to the last cantos of Dante's Purgatorio where Dante met Beatrice on the earthly paradise. Beatrice cast her eyes upon Dante who was on the other side of the stream. On side of the stream was the river Lethe that obliterates the memory of sin and on the other side was the river Eunoe, that restores the memory of righteousness. Dante was unable to meet Beatrice eyes because of his guilt for his sins and infidelity to her. Dante repented and confessed. He was drawn into the rivers Lethe and Eunoe and his soul is cleaned for his journey towards paradise.

Death's other kingdom refer to either Inferno or Paradiso as per the vicious & the virtuous souls, but still it indicates the higher moral & spiritual state that comes up with self scrutiny symbolized by the “direct eyes” of Charon or of Beatrice.

 Eyes I dare not meet in dreams

In death's dream kingdom 20

These do not appear:

There the eyes are

Sunlight on a broken column

Eyes here refers to that of Beatrice that restore Dante's soul to virtue. 

Death's dream kingdom refers to the hollowmen's death in life existence of spiritual inertia.It suggests a Limbo.  

There the eyes….broken column : allusion to Eliot's essay on Marston where he talks about detachment and drowsing in sunlight. It suggests even the eyes of Beatrice are fruitless to these hollow men as they lack the self scrutiny necessary for spiritual salvation.

There is a tree swinging

And voices are 25

In the wind's singing

More distant and more solemn

Than a fading star

The hollow men lacking a voice of their own and are fading like a star. 

Let me be no nearer

In death's dream kingdom 30

Let me also wear

Such deliberate disguises

Rat's coat, crowskin, crossed staves

In a field

Behaving as the wind behaves 35

No nearer--

Not that final meeting

In the twilight kingdom. (Purgatorio where Dante's virtue was restored for his journey to Paradise)

These lines suggest how the hollow men are dreaded to meet those eyes of salvation in death's twilight kingdom similar to that of death's other kingdom in their death in life existence and therefore recourse to different types of dehumanized disguises which further suggests their fear if facing their inadequacy.

The final meeting suggets a possible spiritual salvation. This alludes to Dante's encounter with Beatrice. These hollow men though resist but they know that those eyes are the only hope of their salvation. Thus, they both resist and desire those eyes of self illumination. Here , the moral confusion is highly implied.

 This is the dead land

this is cactus land 40

Here the stone images

Are raised, here they receive

The supplication of a dead man's hand

Under the twinkle of a fading star.

“This is the dead….cactus land” suggests the hollow men's world of spiritual sterility. 

The stone images alludes to the ‘false gods’ of Israelites. 

These lines parodies the twilight scene in Dante's Purgatorio viii where Dante encounters one of the repentant souls who by raising both his palms sings devoutly for God's supplication. Eliot here parodies that those false gods are waiting for the hollowmen's supplication. This evokes an overall mood of hollow men's show off and spiritual vaccum. 

Fading star is a possibile parody of Shelley's To a Skylark to criticize Hollow men’s following a romantic passion but lacking in action. 

Is it like this 45

In death's other kingdom

Waking alone

At the hour when we are

Trembling with tenderness

Lips that would kiss 50 ( an allusion to James Thompson's poem Art)

Form prayers to broken stone

Even in place like death's other kingdom, a place for possible spiritual salvation,the hollow men are alienated 

"At the hour when we are / Trembling with tenderness":This juxtaposition of physical vulnerability (trembling) with a feeling of tenderness creates a sense of fragile, yet unfulfilled, desire. 

"Lips that would kiss / Form prayers to broken stone": This poignant image reveals the hollow men's inability to connect authentically. Their desire to kiss is thwarted, and their prayers are directed towards inanimate objects, emphasizing their spiritual void and the futility of their actions. 

The overall mood is of the distance between their intention and action as they lack communication to fulfil their love and prayer. 

The eyes are not here

There are no eye here

In this valley of dying stars

In this hollow valley 55

This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms.

The eyes are not …here” : these lines justaposes the death’s other kingdom of spiritual sustenance from the death in life existence of the hollow men in their death’s dream kingdom where there is no possibility of spiritual emancipation. 

Broken jaw alludes to Samson who with the broken jaw of an ass slew thousand of Philistines but was dying in thirst. Then God created a place in the jaw and water came out of it which Samson drank & revived his spirit. But in the hollow men's world there is no such possibility of spiritual sustenance exists. 

 In this last of meeting places

We grope together

And avoid speech

Gathered on this beach of the tumid river. 

"In this last of meeting places":This phrase indicates a sense of finality and a place of last resort, suggesting a world on the brink of collapse or a state of profound spiritual emptiness.

"We grope together":

This imagery conveys a sense of blindness and uncertainty. The hollow men are searching for something, but they are doing so clumsily and without clear direction

Tumid river: suggests Acheron/Styx/Lethe of Dante's Inferno.

Sightless, unless

The eyes reappear

As the perpetual star

Multifoliate rose

Of death's twilight kingdom 

The hope only

Of empty men.

Empty men : Allusion to St. John of Cross, a Spanish mystic , who spoke of salvation if only we empty ourselves of the love of created things.

The hollow men are searching for the light of those eyes that they dreaded so far, but now they desired it as it were the last hope for their salvation. 

Perpetual star refers to the single star of the Trinity 

Multifoliate Rose alludes to both Virgin Mary and Beatrice. Multifoliate Rose refers to the eternal white rose of which the petals are the blessed souls and Mary enthroned at the center. Dante also referred to Beatrice as the Rose and the “living star”. Thus like Dante, these hollow men also look forward to Mary or Beatrice for their salvation. 

Here we go round the prickly pear

Prickly pear prickly pear

Here we go round the prickly pear 70

At five o'clock in the morning.

A parody of the nursery song game “here we go round the mulberry bush”. The mulberry fruit stands for fertility and resonates with the vegetation ceremonies, where as the prickly pear suggests the cactus like sterility.

The time, 5:00 AM, is traditionally associated with Christ's resurrection, a moment of new life and hope. The hollow men are unable to grasp the significance of the time, highlighting their spiritual void & inability to experience renewal. 

Between the idea

And the reality

Between the motion

And the act 75

Falls the Shadow

For Thine is the Kingdom

Between the conception

And the creation

Between the emotion 80

And the response

Falls the Shadow

Life 

is very long

Between the desire

And the spasm 85

Between the potency

And the existence

Between the essence

And the descent

Falls the Shadow 90

For Thine is the Kingdom (Lord's prayer)

These lines echo Brutus’ soliloquy act ii, scn i, where he reflects upon his dilemma to join the conspirators against Caesar. It also alludes to Paul Valery 's poems The Cemetery by the Sea & Between the Void and its pure issue in the melancholic scepticism to address the gap between aspiration and fulfillment.

 

These lines highlight three moods — the abstract of “Between idea…”, the formal elegance of the Lord's prayer, and the anguished cry of “Life is very long”. Thus, overall it suggests the hollow men had idea, but they lack in action yet dream of salvation! 

Existence and essence : resonates with Aristotlean philosophy of matter's potency if form gives its existence 

Falls the shadow also alludes to the following line of Ernest Dowson’s poem “I am Not now as once I was”: “There fell the shadow”

Falls the shadow alludes to Plato's idea of Caves in The Republic in which it is suggested that the material world we see is merely the shadow of the real.

For Thine is the Kingdom

For Thine is

Life is

For thine is the

This is the way the way the world ends 95

Lord’s prayer is confused by the broken apprehension of the dreariness of Hollow men’s existence. The Kingdom of God which the prayer yearned for is inaccessible to the hollow men and enact their failure to pray. 

This is the way the way the world ends 95

This is the way the way the world ends

This is the way the way the world ends

Not with a bang but a whimper.

The speaker refuge in self mockery

Not with ….whimper: An allusion of George Santayana’s following account of The Divine Comedy in Three Philosophical Poets “it all ends, not with a bang, …but in sustained reflection”. 

Eliot probably had in mind Rudyard Kipling's poem Danny Deever in choosing the word “whimper”. It also alludes to the failure of Gunpowder plot as well as hollow men's spiritual salvation. Whimper means the cry of a baby here creating a sense of anti-climax for the distance between aspiration and fulfillment of hollow men's spiritual salvation. 

Sources: 

• Jain, Manju, Selected Poems and A critical Readings of the Selected Poems of T.S. Eliot, Oxford University Press,1992
• https://poemanalysis.com/t-s-eliot/the-hollow-men/
• https://craigboehman.com/blog/ts-eliots-poem-the-hollow-men-illustrated-by-artificial-intelligence