In the contemporary era of poetry, T.S. Elliot’s poem “The Hollow Men” is a masterpiece pushed to explain that men have lost something relevant for their dire existence: their soul. This is accompanied by epigraphs with two references: Mistah Kurtz – he is dead, and A Penny for the Old Guy. Mistah Kurtz is an elaborate illusion of Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. Mr. Kurtz lacks individual morals to guide his instincts to live a decent life. In the second epigraph, the historical figure- Guy Fawkes- viewed with the phrase ‘penny for the guy, ‘ joins Kurtz to bring out the sequel sense of ‘Hollow Men’ to the ‘Waste Land’ where wasteland inhabitants, deemed hollow due to their perceived disconnection from a faith enriching their lives sacrifice their lives in desire for wealth. Using these figures, Elliot depicts a desolate world with people who feel defeated; he describes them as ‘dead’ since their lack of ‘soul’ makes it hard for them to exist (Elliot). The poem’s first section is versed with images of emptiness and eyes. In the second, others explore images of judgment, salvation, darkness, and innocence. The poem’s tone is realized at the beginning epigraph, “Mistah Kurtz – he dead,” as suggested by Joseph Conrad’s The Heart of Darkness. While Elliot reflects on the European culture and way of life during World War I, the speaker’s perspective is to explore how the horrors of war have instilled despair in the culture, making it fade to nothingness through exceptional symbolism.
Elliot’s success in his poem was largely influenced by suggestive symbolism. The poem’s topic is symbolic as it denotes emptiness through physical, emotional, and moral contexts. Elliot uses the term ‘hollow’ to represent the spiritual emptiness of his figures. In this context, he illustrates the disillusionment of the modern era and the spiritual emptiness experienced by British society following the devastating effects of World War I. In the first section, the speaker explores these characters as “stuffed men” (Elliot, Part 1, Line 2). This is a contradiction since men in the men are not ‘stuffed.’ In this sense, Elliot commences his allusion to the men’s spiritual decay, stuffed with purposeless straw. While these characters seem to speak up, nothing they utter makes sense, but they come out as dry. From a broader perspective, the human history conflict swept away moral, religious, and cultural certainties underpinning Western civilizations. This led to the fragmentation and diffusion of Western culture, making it unable to fulfill its pivotal role as a foundation for transnational heritage (Hasan 161). In this light, Elliot uses the eponymous characters as extended metaphors to explain the decline of this culture after World War I. The men are described as ‘hollow’ since the war has divested their humanity, and they have nothing upon which they draw to restore it. They seem inter and incapable of executing a thing, as explained by the “dead land and cactus land” in the poem. The barren landscape, which shows emptiness, symbolizes the dissolved cultural achievement after the war when people lose faith in God and resort to other beings, as replicated in “The supplication of a dead man’s hand” (Elliot Line 43). Therefore, the topic “The Hollow Men” broadly symbolizes the emptiness and hopelessness of men unwilling to take a leap of faith to reconstruct their civilized culture.
While eyes and sightlessness are mentioned several times in the poem, it is unclear whether Elliot refers to several pairs or a singular eye. For example, in the lines “Those who have crossed, with direct eyes” (Elliot Lines 13-14), the speaker explains that people who reason beyond their afterlives focus on a better future, unlike those who dwell in the past. In this case, they become worthy of a fate like the one in “The Hollow Men.’ It is imperative to recognize that religion opens an individual’s eyes by offering concrete spiritual knowledge of the universe, enlightening and awakening them. In this poem, the ‘hollow men’ residing in the ‘Wasteland’ believe the land has lost its spirituality, and everything has become physically and worldly meaningless (Sharma 4). The hollow man, at this point, cannot ‘see’ anything of value, as seen in the final section, where they fail to mimic the Lord’s prayer. The speaker perceives these men as ‘Sightless unless the eyes reappear” (Elliot Line 61), with their only hope being the sight of a multifoliate rose. In this context, the rose is used to symbolize the Virgin Mary in Catholicism or paradise, suggesting that these men require the intervention of the Virgin Mary to regain their sight. The other set of eyes mentioned are the eyes of God, which invite hollow men to render their accounts to God.
Conversely, Elliot uses shadows as symbolic gestures for fear, death, and anxiety. As prominent as it is, the aspect of shadow intervenes in the basic forces such as desire and emotion, hindering the hollow men from functioning well. It separates their ideal ideas from reality, act and motion, and conception from creation. In this case, the ‘shadow’ seemingly is unbeatable to the hollow men as the speaker concludes the poem reflecting the end of the world ‘not with a bang but a whimper. However, the allusion to Biblical texts in the poem images that God can set the world right to its original state. The shadow is explicitly regarded as the God of anti-creation since its purpose is to stop life and connote hollow abstraction and nothingness. If these men cannot work in a positive direction to avoid the perceived tragic fate, nothing in death’s kingdom will help (Sharma 3). Elliot’s use of ‘shadow’ symbolically explains the societal emptiness and the decay of European civilization. The people in it reflect the bareness and decay of the land. They are largely disconnected from each other and have adopted lives full of ’emptiness.’ Elliot’s use of allusion in the poem, from the epigraph to the Biblical allusion, describes the destruction that befalls men who fail to keep up with faith.
Through acts of alienation and denial, Elliot’s “The Hollow Men” depicts a poetic consciousness of exceptional nostalgia and tension between spiritual conflicts and the paradoxical quest for lasting human order. It explores Elliot’s despair as an alternative form of unthinking and hopeless men in the wasteland. The text constructs a desolate universe to explain the spiritual intention evasion, men’s inability to collaborate with others, and the transcendental spirituality being their only hope. The poem’s first two lines explain what the speaker illustrates in the entire poem. The word ‘dead’ used with ‘cactus’ depicts land as a desert, elaborating the land these “Hollow Men” live in. Elliot has exhaustively incorporated several symbols, such as the ‘eyes, shadow, and “The Hollow Men,” to symbolize numerous instances of the aftermath of World War I. With top-notch symbolism, Elliot explains the misery that post-war society faced as the war swept their civilization ideas.
Work Cited
Eliot, Thomas Stearns. “The Hollow Men.” PUB DATE 85 NOTE 281p.; Developed by participants of the 1985 Summer Humanities Institute in Literary Criticism and the Teaching of Literature. For other volumes, see CS 213 1925: 52. https://allpoetry.com/the-hollow-men
Hasan, Mariwan M. “A Thematic investigation into TS Eliot’s “The Hollow Men:” concerning textual approach.” Critical Literary Studies 1.2 2019: 159–184. 10.34785/J014.2019.680
Sharma, Lok Raj. “Men’s spiritual vacuity and inefficacy in Eliot’s poem “The Hollow Men.” Shanlax International Journal of English 10.1 2021: 1–5. https://www.academia.edu/download/107775102/3604.pdf
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