The Hollow Men
by T.S. Eliot (1925)
Analysis and interpretation
(adaptedfrom: http://mural.uv.es/rubafa/hollowmen.htm,accessedon March11, 2013)
Consider the epigraph
Mistah Kurtz – he dead.
A penny for the Old Guy.
Mistah Kurtz – he dead.
• An allusion to Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, a novella
that portrays the empty nature of men
• Mister Kurtz, a European slave trader who had travelled to
Africa in order to do his business, is a character who lacks a
soul, thus a true ‘Hollow Man’
• Phonetic spelling of ‘Mister” = Mistah, and the ellipsis of the
verb ‘to be’ in he dead: this proves that the speaker is
probably some kind of non-native English speaker who uses
pidgin or a creole language (a slave, if we look back at
Conrad’s novella) – Why a slave? – Probably because he
represents another kind of ‘hollow man’ – a passive soul,
humble, but passive
• This verse may also be seen as an answer to the question
“Where’s Mister Kurtz?”, as if we did not know that he
(is)(already) dead. (the idea of ‘ignored death’/emptiness)
A penny for the Old Guy.
• Allusion to England’s November 5th tradition of
Guy Fawkes Day. In 1605 Guy Fawkes
unsuccessfully tried to blow up the Parliament
building. Eliot’s quote A penny for the Old Guy is
called out on this holiday by children who are
attempting to buy fireworks in order to burn
straw figures of Fawkes. In the verse Old and Guy
are written with capital letters, emphasizing the
fact that the puppet represents a ‘poor, old,
mortal fellow’ who needs to be given a few alms.
What’s the relationship
between these two verses?
• Mister Kurtz – lacks a soul = spiritual emptiness
• Guy Fawkes dummy – lacks a real body = physical
emptiness
Hollowness of modern men, who fundamentally
believe in nothing and are therefore empty at the
core of their being
First impressions
Repetitions?
Structural repetitions 1:
reinforcement of the description of states and
existences due to the use of the verb to be in the
Present Simple + emphasis on the idea of
hollowness /emptiness
We are the hollow men,
We are the stuffed men. (I)
This is the dead land,
This is the cactus land. (III)
The eyes are not here,
There are no eyes here (IV)
Structural repetitions 2:
the structure A without B, C without D that
highlights the main themes of the poem:
meaninglessness, nothingness and paralysis if we
treat shape/form, shade/colour and
gesture/motion as synonyms
Shape without form, shade without color,
Paralyzed force, gesture without motion
(all these concepts are ‘cancelling each other by a
system of ‘binary opposition’, present as well in
part V (between the idea and the reality,
between the motion and the act falls the
Shadow, etc.)
Repetitions of ideas and words
Eyes
Voices
Death’s other kingdom
Another kind of repetition is carried out through
negation
Eyes I dare not meet in dreams (II)
These do not appear (II)
Let me be no nearer (II)
No nearer (II)
Not that final meeting (II)
The eyes are not here,
There are no eyes here (IV)
Eliot uses negation as an expression of sorrow
and guilt, trying to avoid the inevitability of
death
Part V and its repetitions
• A children’s song based on repetition:
Here we go ‘round the prickly pear,
Prickly pear, prickly pear.
Here we go ‘round the prickly pear
At five o’clock in the morning.
• The familiar mulberry tree is replaced with prickly pear
(cactus) – infertility dance – primitive chant
• Use of truncated verses as if the reader were to complete
the gaps – infertility/emptiness:
For Thine is
Life is
For Thine is the
Everything in this poem is circular, repetitive and absurd
Symbols
Hollow men, stuffed men leaning together, headpiece filled with
straw (I) – standing – not walking- corpses, immobile dying bodies
Let me also wear
Such deliberate disguises:
Rat’s coat, crowskin, crossed staves
In a field (II) – inanimate, immobile, anthropomorphic figure filled
with straw (a scarecrow)
Voices and eyes – disembodied; they appear as independent,
supernatural concepts apart from the hollow men’s existence
• The voices are quiet and meaningless
• We do not know who the eyes belong to (first, they are source of
fear, then a source of hope, etc.)
The realm of the Hollow Men (death’s other kingdom)
At five o’clock in the morning. (IV) – dancing is a rite of resurrection
around prickly pear (abortion/interruption of life)
Interpretation: part I
Hollow/stuffed men/headpiece filled with straw = the hollow men
are filled with absurd, nonsense ideas and thought, causing them to
be empty and futile
Leaning together = submission or even surrender
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together,
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rat’s feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar. = their voices have no sense, have no effect =
meaninglessness
Shape without form, shade without color,
Paralyzed force, gesture without motion = being distinguished by
external configuration, not content/material = vanity/futility +
paralysis of movement, stasis
We are like the ‘Old Guy’, effigies filled with straw
Interpretation: part 2
Eyes I dare not meet in dreams = disembodied, yet a
source of fear
Thanks to the metaphor (There, the eyes are sunlight on a
broken column) we find out that the eyes do indeed
appear, but in an indirect way, just as a reflection of
themselves. What’s more, the sunlight –a symbol of
greatness- and the broken column –a symbol of ancient
glory- seem to have a connection with the description of
the voices’ meaninglessness in Part I. The sunlight doesn’t
produce an effect on the broken column, it just bounces
off it, it’s a paralyzed force. The adjective broken even
emphasises the distortion of the reflected light.
Another element of death’s dream kingdom (There, is a tree
swinging). Why swinging? The verb means to “move freely to and fro
when hanging from a support”. Now it makes sense if we link it to
the new metaphor about the voices (lines 25-28): And voices are in
the wind’s singing more distant and more solemn than a fading star.
The wind’s singing -its movements- is like the tree’s swinging, they
don’t have a particular direction, they’re meaningless. Furthermore,
if the voices are whispers and are distant within the wind’s singing,
they become unfortunately inaudible. And not only that,
they’re more distant and more solemn than a fading star.
Something solemn is serious and has an established form or
ceremony, whereas a fading star is a decaying, dying element,
because the light it produces is weak and stars are so far away that
their light is the only thing we can perceive from them. Therefore,
in death’s dream kingdom the voices –like the tree- are even more
meaningless and quieter than they were before, and what’s worse,
they’re barely inaudible, meaning that the hollow men’s prayers are
useless -even unnecessary- in that place.
Let me also wear
Such deliberate disguises:
(= chosen on purpose, yet to be invisible)
Rat’s coat, crowskin, crossed staves
In a field
(= scarecrow/hollow/stuffed men)
Interpretation: part III (setting)
This is the dead land,
This is the cactus land.
Here the stone images
Are raised, here they receive
The supplication of a dead man’s hand
Under the twinkle of a fading star.
A need of giving love, a desire which cannot be
accomplished because of the physical and
spiritual devastation of the place
At the hour when we are
Trembling with tenderness.
Lips that would kiss
Form prayers to broken stone.
Interpretation: part IV
In this last of meeting places
We grope together
And avoid speech,
Gathered on this beach of the tumid river
= On one hand, the river’s volume has increased and it might
overflow at any moment, like in an explosion of sexual
impulse. On the other hand, the river, in relation to verses 1314, might symbolise the one that wandering souls must cross
to reach the beyond, accompanied by Acheron, the boatman in
classical mythology. In any case, the hollow men are doomed.
Interpretation: part V
A nursery rhyme that substitutes the `mulberry bush´ by the
`prickly pear´. This element alludes to the cactus (land),
summarising all the features of death’s other/dream/twilight
kingdom: dryness, aridity, solitude, repulsion and immobility.
The hollow men go ‘round it at five o’clock in the morning. This
circular movement depicts an image of children dancing handin-hand and singing like in a traditional, ritual game. The time
when this happens, when nighttime and darkness dissipate
and the sun begins to shine, also has an outstanding
significance. That is the time of resurrection, of returning to
life, of hope for the empty men. However, all the elements
explained seem to mock the hollow men’s situation, as if the
children’s song did not have to welcome the sunlight, but to
scare it away and bring obscurity again. This ritual of
`interruption of life´ is developed within the remaining verses
of Part V.