23 pages • 46 minutes read
T. S. EliotThe Hollow Men
Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1925A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
Cultural Decay
The “hollowness” that pervades each moment of the poem works as an extended metaphor for the cultural emptiness and erosion that Europe faced in the aftermath of the war. The opening line, “We are the hollow men” (Line 1), refers to the way both individuals and the broader society have been hollowed out by the horrors of this time period, both witnessed and enacted. The speaker remarks that their voices have become “quiet and meaningless” (Line 7), suggesting that there are no new ideas, expressions, or innovations to put forth into the world. The men are devoid of emotions and have lost their ability to create. This idea is expanded in the short, standalone second stanza: “Shape without form, shade without colour, / Paralysed force, gesture without motion” (Lines 11-12). There is the sense that the men are just at the edge of the potential for creation, or dimly remember what it was like to embody it, but are now stuck in stagnation and unable to move forward.
In the second stanza, the poem introduces the image of “[s]unlight on a broken column” (Line 23). As the only man-made structure in this in-between place, the column represents what is left of a once proud civilization. The image brings to mind the traditional architecture of the Greeks and Romans, whose teachings greatly shaped Western culture; here, the speaker is illuminating the way this culture has fallen into ruin until it seems as though there is nothing left.
As the poem moves its attention to the landscape surrounding the central characters, the speaker sees how this hollowness has infected the world around him. The characters adorn themselves in “[r]at’s coat [and] crowskin” (Line 33), creatures associated with death and pestilence. This highlights the way the hollow men, and by proxy the individuals within society, have allowed their own internal decay to infect the wider world like a plague. Throughout the poem there are numerous attempts to engage further, but the men are ultimately ineffectual and helpless. Their impotence is explored through the juxtaposition of images in Canto V; although they can perceive the broad idea of action and creation, a “Shadow” (Lines 76, 82, 90) has fallen in between, and the speaker’s agency is drifting farther and farther out of reach.
Loss of Self
In addition to the disillusionment and loss of community, the poem deals heavily with the loss of potential, humanity, and faith. Numerous religious allusions in the poem suggest that the speaker and his companions have lost touch with God and with heaven. The lines “Our dried voices, when / We whisper together / Are quiet and meaningless” (Lines 5-7) suggest an awareness of this personal loss; the hollow men’s voices are not meaningless because they are unintelligent or ignorant, but because they have lost the ability to articulate what they want to communicate. This presence of mind is suggested further on when the speaker says, “Those who have crossed […] / Remember us—if at all—not as lost / Violent souls” (Lines 13-16); this highlights the way the men are receding from memory against their will. The speaker wants to be remembered, but his soul—his innermost self—is fading away.
There are also suggestions that the men in the poem have lost their connection with faith, and, in doing so, have lost their connection with themselves. In the third canto, the speaker recounts how he and his companions “[f]orm prayers to broken stone” (Line 51). This alludes to sections of the Bible that concern idolatry, or the worship of “false gods” or “graven images” thought to be stone effigies. Here, the stone is “broken” just like the “broken column” (Line 23) in an earlier stanza, which symbolizes a disconnection from civilization. Rather than rejecting God, however, the speaker has lost touch and is searching for faith in the wrong places. This suggests an attempt to reconnect with the self by engaging in worship; however, like the broken column, the broken stone leaves the speaker just as alone and alienated as before.
Toward the end of the poem, the speaker finds himself constantly caught between the promise of emotion and emptiness, between hope for the future and complete loss of the inner self. There is an underlying suggestion that if the speaker could complete the Lord’s Prayer and reach that inner part of himself, he could attain salvation. However, he has degraded too far and discovered that part of himself is lost forever.
Hope and Despair
Throughout the poem, overarching despair is interspersed with hope for a better future. This dichotomy creates juxtaposition and tension as the speaker searches for a chance at redemption, but ultimately finds it unattainable. For example, the second canto opens with the contrast of two sets of eyes, which may be the same eyes representing two different things:
Eyes I dare not meet in dreams
In death’s dream kingdom
These do not appear:
There, the eyes are
Sunlight on a broken column (Lines 19-23).
In one instance, the speaker “dare[s] not meet”(Line 19) these eyes, but in another the speaker seems to long for them. There is the sense that to look head-on at these eyes would bring the speaker hope and renewal, but would also require examining some aspect of himself. It is his inner despair that keeps him from accepting hope and new possibilities.
This contrast is also highlighted in the repeated star motif, which symbolizes this sense of hope and potential. The speaker remarks that this heavenly place is “[m]ore distant and more solemn / [t]han a fading star” (Lines 27-28); in other words, the hope is too far to reach, but not too far to perceive. Later, the hollow men raise their hands in “supplication […] [u]nder the twinkle of a fading star” (Lines 43-44). This suggests that they are asking for release or deliverance from the star. Without hope, the men could not have reached for this unattainable ideal; once again, however, the star is “fading,” which suggests that there is a parallel within the hollow men—their hope and self-awareness is fading with it. The poem closes with a final, explosive confrontation between these two polarities: The men struggle to fulfill their hope of redemption by voicing the necessary prayer, and when they fail, they sing about the end of the world in acknowledgment that there is no hope left at all.
Related Titles
By T. S. Eliot
