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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:
"Let me be no nearer
In death's dream kingdom
Let me also wear
Such deliberate disguises
Rat's coat, crowskin, crossed staves
In a field
Behaving as the wind behaves
No nearer - "
- What are the "Rat's coat, crowskin, crossed staves"? (4)
[Need help?]
These are the things from which scarecrows are made. Their skeletal structure consists of crossed
staves or thin branches and are wrapped with straw. They are then traditionally draped with the skins of
the animals and birds they were supposed to be scaring away, creatures like rats and crows.
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- In what way would the "hollow men" be "behaving as the wind
behaves"? (2)
[Need help?]
Being men of little substance, they would be blown every which way by the wind, unable to maintain any
sense of direction.
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"Not that final meeting
In the twilight kingdom."
- What would the poet mean by the "twilight kingdom"? (4)
[Need help?]
The poet is referring to Dante's, The Divine Comedy, a major poetic work set in the Afterlife.
Dante, a Catholic, spoke of three possible Kingdoms of the Afterlife: Heaven, Hell and Purgatory.
Purgatory would be a "twilight kingdom", a place where those souls which have not sinned enough
to deserve Hell would go. There they would remain until they had been purified enough to be able to enter
Heaven.
There would be no happiness in Purgatory. It would indeed be a "twilight kingdom", a world in
between the darkness of Hell and the light of Heaven.
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"This is the dead land
This is 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."
- To what land is the poet referring when he speaks of "the dead land"? (2)
[Need help?]
The poet is probably referring to the world in which we are currently living, the urban faceless world of the
modern industrialised city.
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- Why is this world be a "cactus land"? (2)
[Need help?]
The cactus plant grows in arid conditions in the desert, a place that lacks fertility, lacks water and therefore
lacks growth.
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- What does the poet mean when he speaks of "the stone images" that are raised in this cactus
world? (2)
[Need help?]
The "stone images" are idols or statues to false gods. The poet is therefore commenting that we
"hollow men" worship false gods which are sterile and incapable of doing anything for us, or of
answering our prayers.
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"Is it like this
In death's other kingdom
Waking alone
At the hour when we are
Trembling with tenderness
Lips that would kiss
Form prayers to broken stone."
- What is meant by "death's other kingdom"? (4)
[Need help?]
"Death's other kingdom" could mean Purgatory (see above), a sterile twilight afterlife where there
is no happiness.
It could also refer to the world in which we live, a sterile industrial world of the faceless city.
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- Explain the image, "when we are trembling with tenderness" and our "Lips that would kiss
form prayers to broken stone". (4)
[Need help?]
The poet explains that we might be full of passion - lips that are "trembling with tenderness" -
but there is no real passion in our world. We are only capable of praying to broken statues, to false gods
which cannot answer our prayers, which cannot bring us happiness.
By the way, those of you who have studied Romeo and Juliet will notice how Eliot has changed
one of Juliet's lines. She says "lips that they must use in prayer" instead of for kissing whereas Eliot
inverts that by saying that lips are for kissing but now they are used for prayer.
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