The Hollow Men
-By T.S. Eliot
Group Members:
Effie, Rebecca, Vita
The Title

“The Hollow Land”-William Morris
“The Broken Men”-Kipling

Allusions:



Julius Caesar-Shakespeare
Heart of Darkness-Conrad
Four Main sources for
The Hollow Men

The Gunpowder Plot:
-Conspiracy arose from the English
Catholic’s resentment of King James I
and his reign’s treatment of their
religion.
- A group of extremists
- Guy Fawkes (Source)

Julius Caesar:
a violent conspiracy of men who are
blinded by their cause
Brutus-a leading Roman citizen
Cassius- recruiting people to conspire to
assassinate Caesar (Source)

The Divine Comedy:
-Dante as a pilgrim traveling through
the three kingdoms of the afterlife: hell,
purgatory, and heaven.
-Virgil
-Beatrice (Source)

Heart of Darkness:
a story full of hollow men- men empty of
faith, personality, moral strength, and
humanity.
-Marlow’s journey into the heart of Africa
-Kurtz (Source)
1925

Eliot wrote this poem during a period of
absence form the bank, having just
suffered nervous breakdown. The
theme of “hollowness” presented in the
poem directly relates to his own
psychological condition at the time.
(Source)
1-4






The “hollow men” and “stuffed men”,
“filled with straw”→
effigies burned on Guy Fawkes Day
The conspirators in Julius Caesar
Kurtz
Eliot’s modern man
Whisper: conspiracy (Source)
11-12


A condition of unfulfillment as seen in
the spiritual state of the shades in
Inferno iii.
Marlow’s experience with resistance of
death. (Source)
13-15



Those who have crossed to death’s
other kingdom are those who have left
behind a state of spiritual nothingness
and entered into knowledge and
recognition of that state.
Kurtz: “The horror! The horror!”
Dante: couldn’t look at Beatrice.
(Source)
19


In heaven, Dante no longer feels
shamed by Beatrice’s gaze.
Once redemption accepted and virtue
restored, the formerly hollow man has
no reason to feel shame when looking
into the eyes of the virtuous. (Source)
23-28



Resemble Dante’s description of the
Earthly Paradise.
Used the star as a symbol representing
God or Mary.
A broken column: a traditional
graveyard memorial for a premature
death. (Source)
32



The souls fear in the obstacles that will
have to overcome before reaching paradise.
Dressing in animal skins:
Possible origins
-ritualistic purposes
-custom of hanging up the corpse of a
member of a crop damaging species
(Source)
35

The Inferno: spirits are blown about by
the wind.

The Heart of Darkness: the native dies
just because he lift the shutter open.
(Source)
37-38



Both Dante and Marlow must face a
meeting they fear.
Dante: Beatrice (divine beauty)
Marlow: Inform Kurtz’s wife of his
death. (Source)
III.



The stone images  suggests
idolatrous worship.
The desert imagery (e.g. dead land,
cactus land, hollow valley) suggests
sterility of the modern world.
A fading star establishes a sense of
remoteness from reality. (Source)
IV.



The eyes are not here  a representation
of the sterility (modern world), a place where
the eyes that offer hope do not exist.
From fading star to dying star.
The broken jaw  might signify that the
civilizing factor has broken, allowing modern
men’s decline. (Source)
IV.



Meeting the final meeting of the lost,
hollow souls before they sentenced to
the inferno.
Tumid river the River Acheron
flowing around hell in Dante’s Divine
Comedy.
Multifoliate rose a vision of
paradise in Divine Comedy. The petals
are formed by the souls of the saved in
heaven. (Source)
V.






A service, ritual service
“go round the prickly pear”
Chant & choral nursery rhyme
The reality/ cactus (footnote 4)
vs. the hope/ roses
The frustration of impulse
“Falls the Shadow”
-(footnote 5) related to religion
-the frustrating shadow of fear
-personification of its negative character (Source)
V.
The conflict of the series
-frustration/ emptiness
-irony of impaired lives
 “Life is very long”  the burden of life
 “Falls the Shadow”
 “Kingdom” is very hard
 “whimper” results from irony & emptiness
(Source)

Works Cited



Eliot, T.S. “The Hollow Men.” Baym, Nina, et al.
eds. Norton Anthology of American Literature.
6th shorter ed. New York: Norton, 2003. 1994-97.
"The Hollow Men". Planet Papers. 17 Apr. 2006
<http://www.planetpapers.com/Assets/1751.php
>
“T.S. Eliot's "The Hollow Men": a Hypertextual
Study of Allusion.” 17 Apr. 2006
<http://www.aduni.org/~heather/occs/honors/D
efault.htm>.