Hollow Men According to C.K

¶ … Hollow Men

According to C.K Stead, "Hollow Men" was the result of several attempts made by T.S. Eliot to combine different sections, each of which were initially published in different magazines. There is thus little or no uniformity between the various sections and there may not be a similar theme running through all of them. This lack of uniformity, Stead suggests, emphasizes "how inappropriate any analysis is which treats it as an intellectual scheme'. 20 There are images that may help us connect one section to another, still to look for a uniform symbolic terrain may prove to be an exercise in futility.

This haunting poem has interesting epigraphs which suggest that these sections deal with soulless men. For example ' Mistah Kurtz, he dead' instantly connects the poem with Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness where Kurtz represented everything that this poem wants to deal with such as rejection of good, failure of soul, guilt and despair etc. The opening section of the poem has rhythm that creates a tone of self-pity and connects it with Church images:

Shape without form, shade without colour,

Paralvsed force, gesture without motion

We get the feeling that this poem is an extension of T.S Eliot's The Waste Land. Here shape without form suggests bad art and shade without color indicates the darkness that resides within. The longer lines add more energy to the sections. They evoke failure of the spirit through speed and intense imagery. In the second section, we see the fear of meeting 'eyes'- eyes that the protagonist dare not meet. 'The eyes which I dare not meet in dreams do not appear in death's dream kingdom'. These eyes are the eyes of the soul- of conscience. These eyes the hollow men cannot meet for they remind him of the good that he has rejected and the truth that he abandoned. Death would here mean, release from the piercing gaze of these eyes.

As we sort out the syntax, we see how the poet has stressed the central feeling of fear in the section. 'Let me be no nearer...' suggests an intense fear of meeting the conscience in the twilight zone. 'Eyes' here represent the other person- someone the hollow man fears. The third section is far more explicit in meaning and develops a close connection with The Waste Land. We see the stone images raised again to indicate soulless worshipping. It is used to highlight the impurity and insincerity of worshippers:

At the hour when we are Trembling with tenderness

Lips that would kiss

Form prayers to broken stone.

The fourth section is actually that twilight zone that hollow men dreaded. The fear of meeting the eyes had already been overcome. It is their absence which is disturbing now:

As the perpetual star

Multifoliate rose

Of death's twilight kingdom

The absence of eyes in the 'twilight kingdom' suggests that this part if yet another version of the world. Here reappearance of eyes would mean rekindling of spirit and rebirth of soul and conscience. The return of eyes is now a hope- 'the hope only'. The syntax is deliberately ambiguous- 'This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms' evokes a powerful and mysterious image of things in the twilight kingdom. The last section deals with another kind of fear and frustration. Here the 'shadow' represents the life in limbo, when the world comes to a standstill. It represents that place between idea and fruition, between thought and materialization, between hope and creation. That's when life appears to be in limo as if it has come to a standstill but that is not actually so. This is the period when things are taking shape subtly however since nothing is apparent, it is a dreadful period.