The Hollow Men

 To what extent is “The Hollow Men” reflective of T S Eliot’s search for fulfilment? Discuss this in reference to language, form and structure.

“The Hollow Men” by T S Eliot was written in 1922 and is recognised to be slightly different from his other work: indeed Allen Tate noted that 'The mythologies disappear altogether in ‘The Hollow Men’’ which indicates that in this critics view Eliot’s previous poems displayed a more abstract style. Contextually the poem was written between WW1 and WW2, seven years into Eliot’s failed marriage with Vivienne Haigh-Wood and five years before Eliot converted to Anglicanism and became a Warden of his local Parish. Subsequently, his desires for sexual and spiritual release feature strongly as themes in “The Hollow Men”.

Firstly, in the title “hollow” is used to show the men as being void of emotion, of human characteristics. Eliot also uses “stuffed” and “empty” to describe the men; this creates the image of scarecrows filled with straw with no human aspects apart from their shape; stationary and inhuman. Scarecrows are essentially ‘fake humans’ used to scare birds, Eliot’s scarecrows look outwardly real but perhaps their form is somewhat deceptive or false, they lack content. The juxtaposition of all three adjectives, “hollow”, “stuffed” and “empty, especially as they are repeated, reflects Eliot’s need for more. “Death’s dream kingdom”, Death’s other Kingdom” and “Death’s twilight Kingdom” are nearly repetitive of each other, and the use of ‘dreams’ and ‘twilight’ creates imagery of uncertainness, a lack of solid reality which is apparently real to the men but also deceptive as our subconscious can sometimes control our thoughts. The lack of expressive punctuation (which would give a more emotional human feel to the poem) leads the speaker to read these lines in a monotonous tone, with no expression, indicating the mood of the men. As Eliot is clearly referring to heaven or hell or purgatory, this shows that what the men are searching for is spiritual release; the repetition of these words reinforces their desperation.

            This theme is further explored with the repetition of “eyes” throughout the poem. In the second section, “Eyes I dare not meet in dreams” shows that the poetic speaker fears judgement: eyes witness and are therefore Judges of us; they connote Judgement Day and therefore St. Peter at the gates of heaven. The fact that he “dare not meet” them shows that he is scared of facing up to reality, perhaps he has done something wrong; however during the poem his opinion and desires change. He describes the men as “Sightless, unless/The eyes reappear”, showing that his preference to blindness and stagnation is the end to purgatory either way, heaven or hell. The couplet in the fourth stanza, “The eyes are not here/ there are no eyes here” suggests a circling of imagery, a never-ending wait to be released from purgatory. Eliot’s personal live purgatory could be his failed marriage, as Vivienne’s apparent mental instability and the fact that divorce was still frowned upon in the 1920s meant that he was stuck.

            The hollow men are completely stuck as well, reflective of Eliot’s personal life. The couplet following the first section “Shape without form, shade without colour, /Paralysed force, gesture without motion” shows their stagnation; “paralysed” is obviously an unwilling lack of movement, nobody chooses to have their physical independence taken away from them by being unable to move. The hopelessness of the men is shown with the use of caesuras, so the poetic speaker has to pause in the middle of both lines to emphasise each of Eliot’s points. The men need movement to be able to do anything, without it they are possibly only as good as the scarecrows that Eliot’s choice of language suggests

            In the third section the almost repetition of “This is the dead land/ This is the cactus land” creates imagery of the desert, the wasteland where nothing can be found and again connotes purgatory and stagnation, reflecting the unhappiness of Eliot’s marriage and his need for fulfilment. There is no life here, as there is no life in his marriage. “Fading star” is symbolic in the poem and could either again be reflective of Eliot’s unhappy marriage, the light going out, or have Christian connotations; the 3 wise men followed the star whilst searching to find Jesus, the fact that the star is “fading” could suggest the difficulties Eliot is having at this stage in his life in finding God. In the next section the “perpetual star” symbolises the only hope of the men, the “empty” men. Perhaps God is Eliot’s only hope in his disturbed personal life.

            The fifth section begins with a subversion of a childhood rhyme, ‘Here we go round the mulberry bush.’ ‘Mulberry bush’ is a female phallic symbolism equivalent with connotations of fertility and of the female sexual organs, but Eliot subverts the meaning completely by re-writing “Here we go round the prickly pear”, reflecting his own sexual frustrations as there is nothing inviting about a cactus. His wife being ill and their marriage an unhappy one it is possible to deduce that the detached couple did not have a healthy sexual relationship at the time the poem was written, however lack of evidence does leave this point open to debate. The words “prickly pear” are intentionally harsh and horrible to hear, the alliteration of the hard consonant more apparent with the repetition in the rhyme. The imagery created by the warped nursery rhyme, of men dancing round a cactus in purgatory singing is absurd, but shows their attempt at retaining normality whilst they lose touch with reality. They may be finding some comfort in childhood memories, especially if they have nothing pleasant to look forward to.

            The final section of the poem begins with italics  (the subverted nursery rhyme) and ends with italics, which creates a circular effect and the sense of being trapped, reflecting Eliot and the men’s fruitless search for release. It is split into 3 stanzas using 3 separation lines, possibly reflective of the Holy Trinity and again reinforcing the religious element of the poem. Each stanza begins with “Between” showing the men’s inability to move, as well at the wider themes of falseness, deception or lack of reality and every second line begins with “And”, the repetition makes it easy to understand and again forces the speaker to read in an expressionless voice, empty of hope and emotion. The stanzas all end with “Falls the Shadow” which sounds very final, as if the end is finally near for the men. Shadows are dark spaces traditionally feared by children due to their lack of light and connote danger, in this instance death or the human failings of the men. 

            “For thine is the Kingdom” separates the first and second stanza and is repeated after the third. This is a line near the end of the Lord’s prayer which is often spoken at the end of church services and is the pinnacle prayer for Christians: the men may be trying to repeat it now as an attempt to find reassurance and comfort. Eliot’s use prevents the flow of the poem and makes the rhythm stagnant, as if the men are trying to get the words out but can’t quite succeed, maybe just as Eliot attempts to find God but can’t quite succeed. “Life is very long” separates the second and the third stanza and shows the men’s desperate longing for death, life has become too long. “For Thine is/ Life is/ For Thine is the” is a reduction in the prayer and sounds almost like a broken record, the words dead and not quite finishable, reflective of Eliot’s struggle for release. The entire poem is about searching, and Eliot’s search for spiritual and sexual fulfilment is evident in the Hollow men’s desire to be released from purgatory.

            The use of three “This is the way the world ends/This is the way the world ends/This is the way the world ends” sounds as if the men are stood on the edge of life and has apocalyptic connotations. As it’s a repetitive chant it sounds like a child’s nursery rhyme as does the prickly pear chant in the section before, but again presenting major ‘adult’ themes in unsettling children’s vocabulary, death and infertility have no place in an idealistic children’s world. “Not with a bang but a whimper.” is a very abrupt end to the poem, as death is a very abrupt end to life. Eliot’s use of bathos, the complete anti-climax finish to the poem is scarier than if the ending was an explosion of rage or passion: “whimper” sounds vulnerable and shows the loss of hope, emotion and humanity. It’s not what we expect of an apocalypse and this unsettles us more.

By Ella Upton

Word count (including quotes): 1441

Word count (excluding quotes): 1305