T. S. Eliot

The Hollow Men

Guy Fawkes Reference

Opening line alludes to Guy Fawkes, the failed gunpowder plot conspirator. Traditionally, children would ask for 'a penny for the Guy' on November 5th.

A penny for the Old Guy
I

Sensory Decay

Sound imagery of dry, brittle textures emphasizes spiritual exhaustion: dry grass, broken glass, whispers.

Hollow Men Metaphor

Eliot uses physical emptiness as a metaphor for spiritual and emotional vacancy. 'Stuffed with straw' suggests artificial, meaningless existence.

We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when

Sensory Decay

Sound imagery of dry, brittle textures emphasizes spiritual exhaustion: dry grass, broken glass, whispers.

We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats' feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar

Paralysis Imagery

Contradictory descriptions reveal total spiritual inertia—shape without substance, motion without movement.

Shape without form, shade without colour,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion;
Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to death's other Kingdom

Death's Kingdoms

Repeated phrase 'death's kingdom' suggests multiple metaphysical spaces beyond physical life.

Remember us—if at all—not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men
The stuffed men.
II
Eyes I dare not meet in dreams
In death's dream kingdom
These do not appear:
There, the eyes are

Dream Landscape

Surreal, fragmented imagery of broken columns and distant voices create a liminal dreamscape.

Sunlight on a broken column
There, is a tree swinging
And voices are
In the wind's singing
More distant and more solemn
Than a fading star.
Let me be no nearer
In death's dream kingdom
Let me also wear
Such deliberate disguises
Rat's coat, crowskin, crossed staves

Defensive Disguise

Survival strategy of camouflage—wearing 'rat's coat' and 'crowskin' to avoid confrontation.

In a field
Behaving as the wind behaves
No nearer—
Not that final meeting
In the twilight kingdom
III
This is the dead land
This is cactus land
Here the stone images
Are raised, here they receive
The supplication of a dead man's hand
Under the twinkle of a fading star.
Is it like this

Death's Kingdoms

Repeated phrase 'death's kingdom' suggests multiple metaphysical spaces beyond physical life.

In death's other kingdom
Waking alone
At the hour when we are
Trembling with tenderness
Lips that would kiss

Stone Imagery

Petrification metaphor: living impulses (kiss, tenderness) calcified into lifeless stone.

Form prayers to broken stone.
IV
The eyes are not here
There are no eyes here
In this valley of dying stars
In this hollow valley
This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms.
In this last of meeting places
We grope together
And avoid speech
Gathered on this beach of the tumid river.
Sightless, unless
The eyes reappear
As the perpetual star
Multifoliate rose
Of death's twilight kingdom
The hope only
Of empty men.

Sensory Decay

Sound imagery of dry, brittle textures emphasizes spiritual exhaustion: dry grass, broken glass, whispers.

V
Here we go round the prickly pear

Ritual Repetition

Nursery rhyme-like repetition in 'prickly pear' section mimics ritualistic, meaningless human behavior.

Prickly pear prickly pear

Ritual Repetition

Nursery rhyme-like repetition in 'prickly pear' section mimics ritualistic, meaningless human behavior.

Here we go round the prickly pear
At five o'clock in the morning.
Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow
      For Thine is the Kingdom

Fragmentary Theology

Broken liturgical phrases ('For Thine is') suggest fractured spiritual connection.

Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the Shadow
      Life is very long
Between the desire
And the spasm
Between the potency
And the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the Shadow

Fragmentary Theology

Broken liturgical phrases ('For Thine is') suggest fractured spiritual connection.

      For Thine is the Kingdom
For Thine is

Fragmentary Theology

Broken liturgical phrases ('For Thine is') suggest fractured spiritual connection.

Life is

Fragmentary Theology

Broken liturgical phrases ('For Thine is') suggest fractured spiritual connection.

For Thine is the
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.

Apocalyptic Whimper

Famous closing line: world doesn't end dramatically, but through gradual, pathetic disintegration.

Guy Fawkes Reference

Opening line alludes to Guy Fawkes, the failed gunpowder plot conspirator. Traditionally, children would ask for 'a penny for the Guy' on November 5th.

A penny for the Old Guy
I

Sensory Decay

Sound imagery of dry, brittle textures emphasizes spiritual exhaustion: dry grass, broken glass, whispers.

Hollow Men Metaphor

Eliot uses physical emptiness as a metaphor for spiritual and emotional vacancy. 'Stuffed with straw' suggests artificial, meaningless existence.

We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when

Sensory Decay

Sound imagery of dry, brittle textures emphasizes spiritual exhaustion: dry grass, broken glass, whispers.

We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats' feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar

Paralysis Imagery

Contradictory descriptions reveal total spiritual inertia—shape without substance, motion without movement.

Shape without form, shade without colour,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion;
Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to death's other Kingdom

Death's Kingdoms

Repeated phrase 'death's kingdom' suggests multiple metaphysical spaces beyond physical life.

Remember us—if at all—not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men
The stuffed men.
II
Eyes I dare not meet in dreams
In death's dream kingdom
These do not appear:
There, the eyes are

Dream Landscape

Surreal, fragmented imagery of broken columns and distant voices create a liminal dreamscape.

Sunlight on a broken column
There, is a tree swinging
And voices are
In the wind's singing
More distant and more solemn
Than a fading star.
Let me be no nearer
In death's dream kingdom
Let me also wear
Such deliberate disguises
Rat's coat, crowskin, crossed staves

Defensive Disguise

Survival strategy of camouflage—wearing 'rat's coat' and 'crowskin' to avoid confrontation.

In a field
Behaving as the wind behaves
No nearer—
Not that final meeting
In the twilight kingdom
III
This is the dead land
This is cactus land
Here the stone images
Are raised, here they receive
The supplication of a dead man's hand
Under the twinkle of a fading star.
Is it like this

Death's Kingdoms

Repeated phrase 'death's kingdom' suggests multiple metaphysical spaces beyond physical life.

In death's other kingdom
Waking alone
At the hour when we are
Trembling with tenderness
Lips that would kiss

Stone Imagery

Petrification metaphor: living impulses (kiss, tenderness) calcified into lifeless stone.

Form prayers to broken stone.
IV
The eyes are not here
There are no eyes here
In this valley of dying stars
In this hollow valley
This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms.
In this last of meeting places
We grope together
And avoid speech
Gathered on this beach of the tumid river.
Sightless, unless
The eyes reappear
As the perpetual star
Multifoliate rose
Of death's twilight kingdom
The hope only
Of empty men.

Sensory Decay

Sound imagery of dry, brittle textures emphasizes spiritual exhaustion: dry grass, broken glass, whispers.

V
Here we go round the prickly pear

Ritual Repetition

Nursery rhyme-like repetition in 'prickly pear' section mimics ritualistic, meaningless human behavior.

Prickly pear prickly pear

Ritual Repetition

Nursery rhyme-like repetition in 'prickly pear' section mimics ritualistic, meaningless human behavior.

Here we go round the prickly pear
At five o'clock in the morning.
Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow
      For Thine is the Kingdom

Fragmentary Theology

Broken liturgical phrases ('For Thine is') suggest fractured spiritual connection.

Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the Shadow
      Life is very long
Between the desire
And the spasm
Between the potency
And the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the Shadow

Fragmentary Theology

Broken liturgical phrases ('For Thine is') suggest fractured spiritual connection.

      For Thine is the Kingdom
For Thine is

Fragmentary Theology

Broken liturgical phrases ('For Thine is') suggest fractured spiritual connection.

Life is

Fragmentary Theology

Broken liturgical phrases ('For Thine is') suggest fractured spiritual connection.

For Thine is the
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.

Apocalyptic Whimper

Famous closing line: world doesn't end dramatically, but through gradual, pathetic disintegration.

Source Wikipedia Poetry Foundation

Reading Notes

Post-War Spiritual Exhaustion

Written in the aftermath of World War I, The Hollow Men represents a generation traumatized by unprecedented industrial warfare. Eliot captures the psychological devastation: men stripped of meaning, agency, and spiritual vitality.

The poem's fragmented structure—with its broken lines, repetitions, and disconnected imagery—mirrors the fractured post-war psyche. Soldiers who survived were often emotionally paralyzed, unable to fully re-engage with life.

Modernist Poetic Techniques

Eliot employs radical fragmentation as a core technique. The poem doesn't follow traditional narrative or lyric structures, instead creating meaning through juxtaposition and negative space.

Key modernist strategies include: multiple death kingdoms, ritualistic repetition, theological fragments, and a deliberate rejection of heroic or romantic representations of human experience. The poem suggests that modern humanity is fundamentally disconnected—from spirituality, from action, from meaningful communication.