Relation to HOD: Mistah Kurtz-He dead…as we said in class this is an allusion to Heart of Darkness. “We whisper together Are quiet together and meaningless As wind in dry grass Or rats’ feet over broken glass…” I thought this section really related to Heart of Darkness. This idea of “whispers” is really important in Heart of Darkness when Marlow talks about the jungle whispering to Kurtz “things about himself he did not know…It echoed loudly within him because he was hollow at the core.” (hollow man??) Also, when Marlow lied to Kurtz’s “intended” he whispers Kurtz’s true last words in his head. The whole idea of whispering is key in Heart of Darkness. Also, this line relates to HOD: Waking alone. There is a line from HOD that talks about dreaming alone so we live alone…cant find it.
Also, the lines about shadows could relate somehow to the end of HOD when there is that gloom.
The biggest similarity between this poem and HOD for me was the sort of sense of disillusionment apparent in both. The poem builds a slow momentum towards death, the close, at which point the culminating force collapses into something pathetic: a whimper. Similarly, through heart of darkness Kurtz and the imperialism that he orchestrates are slowly built up in Marlowe, and the reader's minds, until a final confrontation when it becomes clear that Kurtz is no hero, but rather a case study of the "horror" that man can unleash uhindered by the restraint of western culture. (The darkness that represents this sort of unconstrained, id-enducing, heart of Africa is often compared to death) Kurtz's death too is in a way anticlimactic; his finals words only acknowledge of "the horror" (maybe even the "hollowness") of his existence. The one critical essay I reads tonight even referred to these words as "empty signifiers," or rhetorical terms which may evoke some connotation but posses no concrete meaning.
Ok. The Hollow Men. I broke down the poem during the period, but then when we talked about it as a class, most of my interpretations were different. So, the following is the interpretation that I found as I broke it down (aka my opinion). Warning: this is going to be long. The first four lines signify that we, as a human race, are brainless and there is nothing we can do about it. "We are the hollow men/we are the stuffed men". We are the mass produced scarecrows of the world, brainwashing the future generations into filling the same clothes and ideals as the former. We try to hide from the "scary things" such as death (represented by the crows that scarecrows are meant to fend off). The next six lines, "Our dried... cellar", basically stands for the meaninglessness of our attempt to predict life after death. This also relates to the whispers of the jungle and echoes the whimper stated at the end of the poem, as stated in class. The next two lines, "Shapes... motion", convey images of things that cancel themselves out. This describes how people blur into nothingness because the things that they consider meaningful are canceled out by the fact that others don't find them so. The next two lines describe how people cross into the kingdom of death and away from that of life, directly looking and moving forward in the process. The last four lines of this section explain how the memories of people after they die become hollow over time, until it is as if they never existed at all. This makes life meaningless because no one remembers the average man. This also relates to Marlow's idea of Kurtz after his death when he ponders the greatness of the man and the knowledge that he possessed. His wife is the only one who thinks of him fondly, but what happens when the two die? The memory of Kurtz will die with them and the few people he has come in contact with.
Ok, so this is getting really long, so I'm going to sum up now. The first stanza of section II describes eyes that you do not want to see in dreams (aka nightmares) and since hell derives from nightmares, there is no hell. If there were a hell, that means that there would be meaning in life: to have a better afterlife. The next stanza describes how, after you die, you do not go to some great kingdom in the sky or below the earth, but you become a part of it. You fertilize the soil and make trees, the wind sings the songs you once sang but those who remember you are the only ones who hear it. You dissolve in the earth, fading and alone. The next stanza explains how you can fool death by wearing disguises so that it takes another person. While there is no meaning in life, he still does not want to die. He wants to keep moving forward so that death will not catch him. This is similar to Kurtz in his attempt to outrun death. The 2 images (rat & crow) can both be considered omens, can only mean bad things if you attempt to cheat death.
Section III basically describes that this world, once blooming, beautiful and full of promise, is now a desert: a waiting ground for death. Section IV, he makes yet another reference to the similarities between people and fading/dying stars. I'm a little confused about this section, but i think it talks about the disconnect between people because of their innate fear of death. Even if we all fear death, it feels like a singular fear and separates people. Section V starts off in nursery rhyme-esque italics, circling round the "prickly pear" of death, perhaps commenting on the touchy subject, but how it mixes the thorns of the topic, how it is easy to be pained by it, and how it is juicy and full of possibilities to question and ponder. The whole section talks about the contrasting physical, mental and emotional aspects of people, and how somewhere in between is the essence of humanity. The poem ends very similarly to Kurtz's last words, "The horror! The horror!" in that the world will end in cries.
So that is my analysis... sorry for making it so long. I might be wrong, but this is just how i saw it. :)
In terms of how Eliot pulls this off, I think it's his grasp of repetition, parallel sentence structure, and binaries. "We are the hollow men/ We are the stuffed men". The repeated image of the eyes caught my attention. There's such an awareness of the divide between life and the kingdom of death that lays beyond. Life exists only as a means of judgment, of dry silent existence cloaked in disguise, "rat's coat, crowskin, crossed staves", before you are snuffed out like a finger pressed to a lit flame. You pass into death as quietly as you lived.
I'm a little confused about the significance of the shadows. Do they represent doubt? During class, Miss Siegel mentioned that the time referenced in "Here we go round the prickly pear/ At five o'clock in the morning." is a shout-out to the resurrection of Christ. Eliot then segways into binaries such as: idea and reality, motion and act, conception and creation, etc. Are the shadows life? - the time we spend on Earth living in ignorance, without vision, before we're admitted into the next Kingdom?
Like we talked about in class, this undramatic death can be compared to Kurtz's death in "Heart of Darkness". Can any man truly be remarkable? Or are we just hollow skulls grouping together in search of divine meaning?
Just as Hollow Men is a poem of the common man, the Heart of Darkness is a work that uses Kurtz as the common imperialist to represent the drastic changes that the African culture had on imperialism. Like this one, I saw many similarities between T.S. Elliot's work and the HOD including the nature imagery specifically in the second section in Elliot's poem and in the congo in HOD. Also, the idea of the hollow men representing this futile existence connects with how Marlow's story is only important and significant to himself. Because he is telling it for himself, it is therefore pointless for others.
I thought it was ironic that the lines 'Those who have crossed with direct eyes' referred to people capable of seeing the truth because in HOD, I found Marlow as a vary unreliable narrator and at times the truth was not always clear.
Alright so the first thing that struck me in relation to HOD was the line "this is cactus land". Konrad consistently compares the Congo to a desert, even though a desert would be its polar opposite. This could show that despite its physical characteristics, the Congo is a "dead land, a cactus land" because of all of the death and destruction there. The overall tone of both the novel and the poem are dark, rooted in death. Also, the entirety of part 2 was basically about nothing-- very little actually happened, and it was mostly Marlow's speculation about Kurtz, which goes back to the idea of "hollow men": supposed substance, with nothing truly substantial inside.
Ok so basically I really love this poem. It's a bit depressing, but just so beautifully rendered. I just finished reading your analysis Ariel, and it was kick ass! Just thought I'd throw that out there, I agree with basically everything you said about the poem.
Being that I am self-indulgent, a little too into poetry, and avoiding other work, this will probably be long, even though I already ranted in class.
I chose to include this poem in the essay we had where we created our own prompt. After Ms. Siegel mentioned it in class while we were discussing The Power and the Glory, and Crime and Punishment, I looked it up, and decided to use it as a means for comparing certain aspects of the two novels. There are many parallels in C&P and P&G to this poem, the idea of a search for meaning in life, people literally being described as hollow (such as the WP and the Leiutenant) and overall just questionning the futility of existance, and the failings of human nature. This poem seems to epitomize the essence of Kurtz the man, and while on earth Marlow may remember him as remarkable, he too soon will die, and after Kurtz is forgotten on earth he will only be remembered by "Those who have crossed/ with direct eyes, to death's other Kingdom" as a hollow man.
The poem is divided into 5 stanzas that progress, as Siegs said in class, like a pilgrimage, reminiscent of The Divine Comedy. The piece has a kind of mesmerizing rhythm. As you read it it's like you are being drawn in (it made me think of a swirly whirlpool).
So yeah, I basically said everything I thought in class but I'll reiterate a little, condensed of course ...
Section I - "We" are all empty and hollow and lead meaningless existances. We aren't even going to be remembered as "violent souls" who fought for something, we are just paralyzed and exist with no fulfillment.
II - We dare not look within ourselves, and we fear the eyes that can see the truth within. We are ashamed by the eyes that will judge our souls, or worse, reveal our failings to us. We try to hide from death, and our own impudence, but we can't.
III - We live in solitude and as death approaches we search of solace in religion, but can find none, and are unable to reconcile religion in our lives.
IV - We do not look inside ourselves, but avoid this dark knowledge. We try to postpone judgement, but we still must face the emptiness. Yet we hope for happiness or meaning possible in the afterlife.
V - We circle the darkness, with a childlike fixation, and as drawn in closer adn closer. This nursery-rhyme-esque section is very forboding. Then there is the build up, the crescendo of all the desires unfulfilled, and the goals unachieved. The inability to reconcile hopes with reality, and falling short into the shadows of the dark emptiness. Between man's attempts and reality is the dark truth of existnace. Yet as this dissapointment builds with a sense of urgency, there is the contrasting breakdown of his inability to finish the prayer. He cannot even get it out, he is paralyzed by his inability to reconcile religion, reality, and fear. Again he fails. And thus he dies, still struggling. Without much ado, but with regret, and a whimper, be it of protest or resignation. Man can never recocile the knowledge of living an unfulfilled life with the approach of death.
... Also, when I looked up this poem for my paper, I saw that the last lines were once interpreted as the whimper being that of a child, showing the cycle of life, and the continuity of this existance, however it basically said that it probably wasn't what Conrad had in mind, but I think it is an interesting other interpretation, so I thought I'd just throw it out there.
I find the last stanza to be so resonant. The contrasts chosen between idea/ reality, motion/ act, concetion/ creation, emotion/ response, desire/ spasm, potency/ existance, essence/ descent are great. Most of the pairs are uniquely, and specifically chosen, and not the inutive counterparts for one another, but they all fit perfectly. The rise and fall of the emotion of this section is great.
I'm going to stop talking now, but I really do just love the poem, especailly the last stanza! Yay Eliot!! More poetry please?
There are two things I wanted to comment on. First, when I read that last line, "This is the way the world ends/Not with a bang but with a whimper," I instantly thought of Kutz's death. Since he was built up so much for most of the novel, when his dying words were anything but thought-provoking ("The horror!") it seemed like he ended not with a bang but with a whimper! So since we know Eliot was inspired by HOD in this poem, thanks to the line "Mistah Kurtz- he dead!" and my group discussed the progression of the poem and how it takes place in "death's other kingdom," but not necessarily death, it would make sense that the poem ends with death (the death of Kutz.) Also, back to the progression for a moment, the strucutre of the poem was clearly divided into 5 parts for a reason. The poem starts out before "death's other kinddom," then it moves to "death's dream kingdom," then it moves to the dead cactus land, then a hollow valley of dying stars, then the place where the shadow falls.
The Hollow Men is saturated in lugubrious imagery that creates the sensation of suffering, similar to Heart of Darkness. There are a handful of lines that I don’t believe we discussed in class that really jumped out at me. One is, in part 1, “With direct eyes, to death’s other Kingdom.” I took death’s other Kingdom to mean Hell (sorry if this was blatantly obvious to everyone else), so we are being told that these men have traveled to a place of eternal suffering. This can also be linked back to Dante’s Divine Comedy, which is referenced by the piece’s title. Also, the last line in part 3, “Form prayers to broken stone” could I either be a reference to the corrupted state of organized religion or the forgotten, pagan religion referenced in part 2. The whole thing is full of contradictions and binaries, especially part 5 where it is the most formulaic. This idea of being caught between two extremes gives the sensation of being paralyzed (Dubliners parallel) in a land without feeling, without action. These modernist men are caught in a suffering between life and death and don’t have the ability to do anything.
The poem begins with the lines "We are the hollow men We are the stuffed men." I think that the use of "we" is really important here. It makes this emptiness into a universal thing, saying it's not just coming from Eliot as the author of the poem. In the entire poem, much of the figurative language is religious but a lot of the description also relates to animals. For example, "Or rats' feet over broken glass" (which is compared to the whisper). And the catalog/alliteration in part II "Rat's coat, crowskin, crossed staves." They allude to death and this feeling of decay.
I also noticed that Eliot mentions stars a lot. When I think of stars, I picture little kids looking out at them, thinking about aliens and the idea of an entirely different world out there. Maybe stars represent hope of a different world (other than this "death's other kingdom") and the fact that the stars are "fading" and "dying" shows the death of this hope.
Then there's the the prickly pear part, which through the repetition, alliteration, and imagery creates a circular pattern. There's even a cyclical repetition of phrases at the beginning of the sentences. For example, "Between the idea / And the reality / Between the motion / And the act / Falls the shadow" and this repeats in the next 2 stanzas. I think the fact that the beginning words "And" and "Between" are alternated draws attention to "Falls the shadow" at the end, which like the whimper, gives the impression of a quiet death like a shadow or darkness just comes and ends it, without giving life any sense of meaning--instead it's hollow. Also, the light and dark imagery "shadow" and "fading stars" vs "sunlight" reminds me of HOD.
There's also enjambment in the last line of the second to last stanza: "For Thine is the." The continuation draws the readers to the last stanza and also emphasizes even more that he cannot finish the prayer. The last lines consist of a repetition of "This is the way the world ends" three times. This relates to HOD because of the use of triads (in HOD, there are 3 parts, 3 breaks, 3 stations, and 3 women). And this use of three relates back to religion and the idea of the trinity.
10 comments:
Relation to HOD:
Mistah Kurtz-He dead…as we said in class this is an allusion to Heart of Darkness.
“We whisper together
Are quiet together and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats’ feet over broken glass…”
I thought this section really related to Heart of Darkness. This idea of “whispers” is really important in Heart of Darkness when Marlow talks about the jungle whispering to Kurtz
“things about himself he did not know…It echoed loudly within him because he was hollow at the core.” (hollow man??) Also, when Marlow lied to Kurtz’s “intended” he whispers Kurtz’s true last words in his head. The whole idea of whispering is key in Heart of Darkness.
Also, this line relates to HOD: Waking alone.
There is a line from HOD that talks about dreaming alone so we live alone…cant find it.
Also, the lines about shadows could relate somehow to the end of HOD when there is that gloom.
HOD similarities:
The biggest similarity between this poem and HOD for me was the sort of sense of disillusionment apparent in both. The poem builds a slow momentum towards death, the close, at which point the culminating force collapses into something pathetic: a whimper. Similarly, through heart of darkness Kurtz and the imperialism that he orchestrates are slowly built up in Marlowe, and the reader's minds, until a final confrontation when it becomes clear that Kurtz is no hero, but rather a case study of the "horror" that man can unleash uhindered by the restraint of western culture. (The darkness that represents this sort of unconstrained, id-enducing, heart of Africa is often compared to death) Kurtz's death too is in a way anticlimactic; his finals words only acknowledge of "the horror" (maybe even the "hollowness") of his existence. The one critical essay I reads tonight even referred to these words as "empty signifiers," or rhetorical terms which may evoke some connotation but posses no concrete meaning.
Ok. The Hollow Men. I broke down the poem during the period, but then when we talked about it as a class, most of my interpretations were different. So, the following is the interpretation that I found as I broke it down (aka my opinion). Warning: this is going to be long. The first four lines signify that we, as a human race, are brainless and there is nothing we can do about it. "We are the hollow men/we are the stuffed men". We are the mass produced scarecrows of the world, brainwashing the future generations into filling the same clothes and ideals as the former. We try to hide from the "scary things" such as death (represented by the crows that scarecrows are meant to fend off). The next six lines, "Our dried... cellar", basically stands for the meaninglessness of our attempt to predict life after death. This also relates to the whispers of the jungle and echoes the whimper stated at the end of the poem, as stated in class. The next two lines, "Shapes... motion", convey images of things that cancel themselves out. This describes how people blur into nothingness because the things that they consider meaningful are canceled out by the fact that others don't find them so. The next two lines describe how people cross into the kingdom of death and away from that of life, directly looking and moving forward in the process. The last four lines of this section explain how the memories of people after they die become hollow over time, until it is as if they never existed at all. This makes life meaningless because no one remembers the average man. This also relates to Marlow's idea of Kurtz after his death when he ponders the greatness of the man and the knowledge that he possessed. His wife is the only one who thinks of him fondly, but what happens when the two die? The memory of Kurtz will die with them and the few people he has come in contact with.
Ok, so this is getting really long, so I'm going to sum up now. The first stanza of section II describes eyes that you do not want to see in dreams (aka nightmares) and since hell derives from nightmares, there is no hell. If there were a hell, that means that there would be meaning in life: to have a better afterlife. The next stanza describes how, after you die, you do not go to some great kingdom in the sky or below the earth, but you become a part of it. You fertilize the soil and make trees, the wind sings the songs you once sang but those who remember you are the only ones who hear it. You dissolve in the earth, fading and alone. The next stanza explains how you can fool death by wearing disguises so that it takes another person. While there is no meaning in life, he still does not want to die. He wants to keep moving forward so that death will not catch him. This is similar to Kurtz in his attempt to outrun death. The 2 images (rat & crow) can both be considered omens, can only mean bad things if you attempt to cheat death.
Section III basically describes that this world, once blooming, beautiful and full of promise, is now a desert: a waiting ground for death. Section IV, he makes yet another reference to the similarities between people and fading/dying stars. I'm a little confused about this section, but i think it talks about the disconnect between people because of their innate fear of death. Even if we all fear death, it feels like a singular fear and separates people. Section V starts off in nursery rhyme-esque italics, circling round the "prickly pear" of death, perhaps commenting on the touchy subject, but how it mixes the thorns of the topic, how it is easy to be pained by it, and how it is juicy and full of possibilities to question and ponder. The whole section talks about the contrasting physical, mental and emotional aspects of people, and how somewhere in between is the essence of humanity. The poem ends very similarly to Kurtz's last words, "The horror! The horror!" in that the world will end in cries.
So that is my analysis... sorry for making it so long. I might be wrong, but this is just how i saw it. :)
In terms of how Eliot pulls this off, I think it's his grasp of repetition, parallel sentence structure, and binaries. "We are the hollow men/ We are the stuffed men". The repeated image of the eyes caught my attention. There's such an awareness of the divide between life and the kingdom of death that lays beyond. Life exists only as a means of judgment, of dry silent existence cloaked in disguise, "rat's coat, crowskin, crossed staves", before you are snuffed out like a finger pressed to a lit flame. You pass into death as quietly as you lived.
I'm a little confused about the significance of the shadows. Do they represent doubt? During class, Miss Siegel mentioned that the time referenced in "Here we go round the prickly pear/ At five o'clock in the morning." is a shout-out to the resurrection of Christ. Eliot then segways into binaries such as: idea and reality, motion and act, conception and creation, etc. Are the shadows life? - the time we spend on Earth living in ignorance, without vision, before we're admitted into the next Kingdom?
Like we talked about in class, this undramatic death can be compared to Kurtz's death in "Heart of Darkness". Can any man truly be remarkable? Or are we just hollow skulls grouping together in search of divine meaning?
Just as Hollow Men is a poem of the common man, the Heart of Darkness is a work that uses Kurtz as the common imperialist to represent the drastic changes that the African culture had on imperialism. Like this one, I saw many similarities between T.S. Elliot's work and the HOD including the nature imagery specifically in the second section in Elliot's poem and in the congo in HOD. Also, the idea of the hollow men representing this futile existence connects with how Marlow's story is only important and significant to himself. Because he is telling it for himself, it is therefore pointless for others.
I thought it was ironic that the lines 'Those who have crossed with direct eyes' referred to people capable of seeing the truth because in HOD, I found Marlow as a vary unreliable narrator and at times the truth was not always clear.
Alright so the first thing that struck me in relation to HOD was the line "this is cactus land". Konrad consistently compares the Congo to a desert, even though a desert would be its polar opposite. This could show that despite its physical characteristics, the Congo is a "dead land, a cactus land" because of all of the death and destruction there. The overall tone of both the novel and the poem are dark, rooted in death. Also, the entirety of part 2 was basically about nothing-- very little actually happened, and it was mostly Marlow's speculation about Kurtz, which goes back to the idea of "hollow men": supposed substance, with nothing truly substantial inside.
Ok so basically I really love this poem. It's a bit depressing, but just so beautifully rendered. I just finished reading your analysis Ariel, and it was kick ass! Just thought I'd throw that out there, I agree with basically everything you said about the poem.
Being that I am self-indulgent, a little too into poetry, and avoiding other work, this will probably be long, even though I already ranted in class.
I chose to include this poem in the essay we had where we created our own prompt. After Ms. Siegel mentioned it in class while we were discussing The Power and the Glory, and Crime and Punishment, I looked it up, and decided to use it as a means for comparing certain aspects of the two novels. There are many parallels in C&P and P&G to this poem, the idea of a search for meaning in life, people literally being described as hollow (such as the WP and the Leiutenant) and overall just questionning the futility of existance, and the failings of human nature. This poem seems to epitomize the essence of Kurtz the man, and while on earth Marlow may remember him as remarkable, he too soon will die, and after Kurtz is forgotten on earth he will only be remembered by "Those who have crossed/ with direct eyes, to death's other Kingdom" as a hollow man.
The poem is divided into 5 stanzas that progress, as Siegs said in class, like a pilgrimage, reminiscent of The Divine Comedy. The piece has a kind of mesmerizing rhythm. As you read it it's like you are being drawn in (it made me think of a swirly whirlpool).
So yeah, I basically said everything I thought in class but I'll reiterate a little, condensed of course ...
Section I - "We" are all empty and hollow and lead meaningless existances. We aren't even going to be remembered as "violent souls" who fought for something, we are just paralyzed and exist with no fulfillment.
II - We dare not look within ourselves, and we fear the eyes that can see the truth within. We are ashamed by the eyes that will judge our souls, or worse, reveal our failings to us. We try to hide from death, and our own impudence, but we can't.
III - We live in solitude and as death approaches we search of solace in religion, but can find none, and are unable to reconcile religion in our lives.
IV - We do not look inside ourselves, but avoid this dark knowledge. We try to postpone judgement, but we still must face the emptiness. Yet we hope for happiness or meaning possible in the afterlife.
V - We circle the darkness, with a childlike fixation, and as drawn in closer adn closer. This nursery-rhyme-esque section is very forboding. Then there is the build up, the crescendo of all the desires unfulfilled, and the goals unachieved. The inability to reconcile hopes with reality, and falling short into the shadows of the dark emptiness. Between man's attempts and reality is the dark truth of existnace. Yet as this dissapointment builds with a sense of urgency, there is the contrasting breakdown of his inability to finish the prayer. He cannot even get it out, he is paralyzed by his inability to reconcile religion, reality, and fear. Again he fails. And thus he dies, still struggling. Without much ado, but with regret, and a whimper, be it of protest or resignation. Man can never recocile the knowledge of living an unfulfilled life with the approach of death.
... Also, when I looked up this poem for my paper, I saw that the last lines were once interpreted as the whimper being that of a child, showing the cycle of life, and the continuity of this existance, however it basically said that it probably wasn't what Conrad had in mind, but I think it is an interesting other interpretation, so I thought I'd just throw it out there.
I find the last stanza to be so resonant. The contrasts chosen between idea/ reality, motion/ act, concetion/ creation, emotion/ response, desire/ spasm, potency/ existance, essence/ descent are great. Most of the pairs are uniquely, and specifically chosen, and not the inutive counterparts for one another, but they all fit perfectly. The rise and fall of the emotion of this section is great.
I'm going to stop talking now, but I really do just love the poem, especailly the last stanza! Yay Eliot!! More poetry please?
There are two things I wanted to comment on. First, when I read that last line, "This is the way the world ends/Not with a bang but with a whimper," I instantly thought of Kutz's death. Since he was built up so much for most of the novel, when his dying words were anything but thought-provoking ("The horror!") it seemed like he ended not with a bang but with a whimper! So since we know Eliot was inspired by HOD in this poem, thanks to the line "Mistah Kurtz- he dead!" and my group discussed the progression of the poem and how it takes place in "death's other kingdom," but not necessarily death, it would make sense that the poem ends with death (the death of Kutz.) Also, back to the progression for a moment, the strucutre of the poem was clearly divided into 5 parts for a reason. The poem starts out before "death's other kinddom," then it moves to "death's dream kingdom," then it moves to the dead cactus land, then a hollow valley of dying stars, then the place where the shadow falls.
The Hollow Men is saturated in lugubrious imagery that creates the sensation of suffering, similar to Heart of Darkness. There are a handful of lines that I don’t believe we discussed in class that really jumped out at me. One is, in part 1, “With direct eyes, to death’s other Kingdom.” I took death’s other Kingdom to mean Hell (sorry if this was blatantly obvious to everyone else), so we are being told that these men have traveled to a place of eternal suffering. This can also be linked back to Dante’s Divine Comedy, which is referenced by the piece’s title. Also, the last line in part 3, “Form prayers to broken stone” could I either be a reference to the corrupted state of organized religion or the forgotten, pagan religion referenced in part 2. The whole thing is full of contradictions and binaries, especially part 5 where it is the most formulaic. This idea of being caught between two extremes gives the sensation of being paralyzed (Dubliners parallel) in a land without feeling, without action. These modernist men are caught in a suffering between life and death and don’t have the ability to do anything.
The poem begins with the lines "We are the hollow men We are the stuffed men." I think that the use of "we" is really important here. It makes this emptiness into a universal thing, saying it's not just coming from Eliot as the author of the poem. In the entire poem, much of the figurative language is religious but a lot of the description also relates to animals. For example, "Or rats' feet over broken glass" (which is compared to the whisper). And the catalog/alliteration in part II "Rat's coat, crowskin, crossed staves." They allude to death and this feeling of decay.
I also noticed that Eliot mentions stars a lot. When I think of stars, I picture little kids looking out at them, thinking about aliens and the idea of an entirely different world out there. Maybe stars represent hope of a different world (other than this "death's other kingdom") and the fact that the stars are "fading" and "dying" shows the death of this hope.
Then there's the the prickly pear part, which through the repetition, alliteration, and imagery creates a circular pattern.
There's even a cyclical repetition of phrases at the beginning of the sentences. For example, "Between the idea / And the reality / Between the motion / And the act / Falls the shadow" and this repeats in the next 2 stanzas. I think the fact that the beginning words "And" and "Between" are alternated draws attention to "Falls the shadow" at the end, which like the whimper, gives the impression of a quiet death like a shadow or darkness just comes and ends it, without giving life any sense of meaning--instead it's hollow. Also, the light and dark imagery "shadow" and "fading stars" vs "sunlight" reminds me of HOD.
There's also enjambment in the last line of the second to last stanza: "For Thine is the." The continuation draws the readers to the last stanza and also emphasizes even more that he cannot finish the prayer. The last lines consist of a repetition of "This is the way the world ends" three times. This relates to HOD because of the use of triads (in HOD, there are 3 parts, 3 breaks, 3 stations, and 3 women). And this use of three relates back to religion and the idea of the trinity.
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