T.S.%20Eliot

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T.S. Eliot

• The Hollow Men

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T.S. Eliot

• When T. S. Eliot (18881965) became a British
  citizen in 1927,
• he also joined the Anglican Church.
• He was deeply religious and affirmed the
  traditionalism, hierarchy, and conservatism of
  High Anglicanism.
• Although The Hollow Men has many religious
  references, Eliot is not affirming Christianity
  but rather lamenting its absence in the modern
  world

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INTRODUCING THE POEM

• Bleak View of Humanity
• When Eliot wrote The Hollow Men, he believed
  humanity was suffering from a loss of will and
  faith.
• The poem reflects this point of view, portraying
  a world without religion or promise of salvation.

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Allusion

• The first line after the title of the poem is an
  allusion, or reference, to Joseph Conrads famous
  short novel Heart of Darkness.
• Mister Kurtz is dead.
• Kurtz journeys to the center of Africa and
  rapidly loses his mind, falling into intense
  paranoia.
• The line refers to a character who is emotionally
  dead long before he is physically dead.

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Allusion

• The second line in the poem alludes to one of the
  most notorious incidents in British History, the
  Gunpowder Plot.
• A penny for the Old Guy
• In 1605, Guy Fawkes, a soldier, was chosen to
  light the fuse that would ignite barrels of
  gunpowder in the cellars of Parliament.
• King James I, and others, would die.

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• The plot failed. Fawkes was sentenced to be
  hanged, drawn, and quartered.
• Every year on November 5, huge bonfires are set
  all over England.
• Straw-filled effigies of Fawkes, called guys,
  are burned.
• These are the stuffed men alluded to in the
  poem.

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• Children join the fun by carrying a guy and
  becoming beggars who ask passersby to give them
  a penny for the guy so that they can buy
  fireworks.

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A Wealth of Allusions

• Eliots poem is full of other allusions,
  especially to works by Shakespeare and Dante.

• hollow men allusion to Shakespeares Julius
  Caesar (Act IV, Scene 2, lines 23-27) hollow
  mensink in the trial (fail when put to the
  test).

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Allusion

• Lines 13-14 Thosekingdom
• Those with direct eyes have crossed from the
  world of the hollow men into Paradise.
• The allusion is to Dantes Paradiso.

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Allusion

• Line 44 Under the twinkle of a fading star
• An allusion to Dante, who used the star to
  symbolize God.

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Allusion

• Line 60 tumid river
• Hells swollen river, the Acheron, in Dantes
  Inferno.
• The damned must cross this river to enter the
  land of the dead.

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Allusion

• Line 64 multifoliate rose
• Dante describes Paradise as a rose of many leaves
• Line 77 For Kingdom
• Closing lines of the Lords Prayer
• For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the
  glory, forever and ever.

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Allusion

• Here we go round the prickly pear Prickly pear
  prickly pear Here we go round the prickly pear At
  five oclock in the morning.
• Look for a second allusion to this childrens
  rhyme

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Allusion

• Lines 88-89 between descent
• The Greek philosopher Plato defined the essence
  as an unattainable ideal and the descent as its
  imperfect expression in material or physical
  reality.

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Philosophical Content

• The Hollow Men was written in 1923, shortly
  after the end of World War I - a major event that
  had a devastating impact on Great Britain.
• Hundreds of thousands of young men were lost in
  combat.
• The old British Empire and many of its traditions
  were toppled.

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Drawing Inferences

• Knowledge
• Hollow means empty
• A straw man is a dummy not a real man
• PLUS
• Text
• EQUALS
• Inference
• Eliots poem
• expresses the
• hopelessness
• many felt after
• World War I.

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Drawing Inferences

• Reading between the lines
• In a 1923 essay, Eliot claims that
• contemporary history reveals an immense
  futility and anarchy.

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Read the Poem
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Re-Reading

• Lines 1-10 record phrases that compare human
  beings to scarecrows. Then offer explanations of
  what the author means with each phrase.
• Lines 29-36 State what the speaker says about
  how he, a hollow man, wants to appear. Then,
  state what he says about how he wants to behave.
  What idea about people living in the modern age
  is Eliot conveying in these lines?
• Lines 39-51 Record each image of the dead land
  that Eliot presents, then complete a chart with
  phrases and ideas expressed by each phrase.

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Re-Reading

• Line 77 The beginning of a sentence added to the
  Lords Prayer by many Christians. The Kingdom
  to which it refers is the kingdom of God. What
  idea about peoples lives does this allusion
  suggest?
• Lines 77-92 Review these lines. What might the
  Shadow mentioned in lines 76, 82 and 90 symbolize?

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Re-Reading

• Think back over the ideas expressed in this poem.
  What does the speaker mean when he says that the
  world will end not with a bang but with a
  whimper?

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Post-Reading Questions

• Is there any possibility for salvation for the
  Hollow Men? Are they capable of saving
  themselves? Does the poem contain any signs of
  hope?
• Eliot once described the newspaper editors and
  politicians of his time in a way that made them
  sound like Hollow Men. Does contemporary
  society have its Hollow Men? Who are they?

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Post-Reading Questions

• Do you find it offensive or arrogant of Eliot to
  judge other people so harshly? Does the fact
  that he does so with an imaginary group in a poem
  make a difference?
• Where are the Hollow Mens eyes? How is this
  significant?
• Do you think the Hollow Men will make it across
  the River Styx, or will they be trapped in the
  desert forever?

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Post-Reading Questions

• Do you agree that people who are too timid to do
  bad things and who only look out for themselves
  are more despicable than people who actively
  commit evil toward others? Do you see a
  difference between the two forms of badness?