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The poet surveys life in the modern, industrialised cities and concludes that it is empty and hollow. There
is no substance to our lives. We produce nothing that is worthwhile. Our world is shallow and sterile.
Eliot makes great use of the image of the afterlife to underline this point, adapting Dante's Divine
Comedy which speaks of the triple afterlife of Heaven, Hell and Purgatory.
Although we have not done enough to deserve Hell, the poet argues, we also do not deserve Heaven.
Our future is therefore the dark and sterile life in Purgatory, where there will be no joy.
A NOTE ON THE POET
Thomas Stearns Eliot was born in St Louis, Missouri, in 1888. He attended Harvard University and
graduated with a Masters degree in Philosophy. While there, he published several poems in the
Harvard Advocate.
The poet left the United States in 1910, moving first to France, then to Germany and finally London. He
married Vivienne Haigh-Wood in 1915, which caused him to settle permanently in England.
His marriage was never successful, however, and they separated in 1933. In 1956 he would remarry, this
time to Valerie Fletcher.
Early during his stay in London, Eliot fell under the influence of the great American poet Ezra Pound, who
assisted in the publication of his early poetry.
The publication of his first book of poetry - Prufrock and Other Observations, 1917 - revealed
Eliot as a forerunner of Modernism, the philosophy of Modern Art. His next book - The Waste
Land, 1922 - is claimed by many to contain some of the most important poetry of the 20th century.
Eliot was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1948. He died in London in 1965. He was 77 years
of age.
"The Hollow Men" is a complicated poem, drawing on other works of literature, especially Dante's
Divine Comedy and Conrad's Heart of Darkness.
The title "The Hollow Men" probably comes from Shakespeare's Julius Caesar:
"But hollow men, like horses hot at hand,
Make gallant show and promise of their mettle;
But when they should endure the bloody spur,
They fall their crests and like deceitful jades
Sink in the trial."
This roughly translates as: "Hollow or empty men are like horses, eager at the start of a race, but as
soon as they feel the pain of the spur, they lose heart and fail."
Have you looked at the questions
in the right column?
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TEST YOURSELF!
Read the left column and then answer
the following questions:
"Mistah Kurtz - he dead.
A penny for the Old Guy."
- Can you find out where these two quotations originated? (2)
[Need help?]
"Mistah Kurtz - he dead" comes from Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness.
"A penny for the Old Guy" is from an old nursery rhyme used by children in England on 5 November
- Guy Fawkes Day or Bonfire Day - when carrying around a stuffed "Guy" or scarecrow to collect
money to buy fireworks.
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"We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together."
- What do you think the poet means by "the hollow men"? (4)
[Need help?]
The poet probably means several things. "Hollow" means empty, something that is without
substance. A person who is insincere can be said to be "hollow", and so could a person who has
no mind of his own, or someone who does nothing worthwhile, or who has no real education.
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- Why should we be "stuffed men"? (4)
[Need help?]
The poet gives us a hint to the answer in the quote, "A penny for the Old Guy".
We are stuffed with metaphorical straw, like the "Guy" or scarecrow which the children are carrying
around. We are people of straw. We have no substance. We do little for the building up of our society.
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"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."
- What would the "headpiece" be? (2)
[Need help?]
The poet is comparing people to a "Guy" or to a scarecrow. These do not have proper heads as
such but rather "headpieces" which are a caricatures of a human head but are stuffed with straw.
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- Why would our voices be "dried"? (2)
[Need help?]
The "Guy" or scarecrow, being stuffed with straw, would also have a straw voice - and therefore
a dry voice. It would be an insubstantial voice and not a real voice at all.
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- How many words can you find in this stanza which mean "without
substance"? (6)
[Need help?]
"Filled with straw", "dried voices", "whisper", "quiet and meaningless as wind in
dry grass", "quiet and meaningless as rats' feet over broken glass" and "in our dry cellar".
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"Shape without form, shade without colour,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion."
- The poet continues his depiction of people without substance. Explain how he does this within the
above two lines. (6)
[Need help?]
A "shape without form" is almost a contradiction. It has no substance, no significance.
The same can be said of "shade without colour". It is colour which gives meaning or substance
to an object, or else we would be living in a boring monochrome world.
A force that is "paralysed" is simply no longer a force. At the same time, a "gesture without
motion" is simply not a gesture at all.
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"Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to death's other Kingdom
Remember us - if at all - not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men
The stuffed men."
- The poet appears to differentiate here between two types of people: the "hollow" or
"stuffed" men and those whom he says have "direct eyes". Can you work out what this
difference is? (4)
[Need help?]
As we have already seen, "hollow" or "stuffed" men are people who have little value, little
substance, little to add to society. They are empty.
Those with "direct eyes" would appear to be those people who are the exact opposite. They are
people who see clearly and act upon that vision. They are people of value to society, people of insight
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wise people.
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