The Hollow Men
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"The Hollow Men" is a Modernist poem by Nobel Prize winning poet T.S. Eliot. It was published in 1925 and evokes depression and sadness after World War I.
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[edit] Description
The two epigraphs to the poem, "Mistah Kurtz - he dead" and "A penny for the Old Guy", show that Eliot will be alluding to Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness and to Guy Fawkes and his straw-man effigy that is burned each year in parts of England on Bonfire Night. In addition, a knowledge of William Shakespeare's play Julius Caesar and Dante's Paradiso and Inferno will be useful in fully understanding the poem.
Told from five perspectives, each representing a phase of the passing of a soul into one of death's kingdoms ("death's dream kingdom", "death's twilight kingdom", and "death's other kingdom"), Eliot describes how we, the living, will be seen by "those who have crossed with direct eyes... not as lost violent souls, but only as the hollow men -- the stuffed men." The image of eyes figures prominently in the poem, notably in one of Eliot's most famous lines Eyes I dare not meet in dreams.
The poet depicts figures, "gathered on the beach of [a] tumid river" - drawing considerable influence from Dante's third and fourth cantos of the Inferno which describes Limbo, the first circle of Hell - showing man in his inability to cross into Hell itself or to even beg redemption, unable to speak with God. Dancing "round a prickly pear", the figures worship false gods, reflecting Eliot's interpretation of Western culture after the First World War.
The final stanza may be the most quoted of all of Eliot's poetry;
- 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.
This last line also alludes to Guy Fawkes, who intended to light the gunpowder in the Gunpowder Plot (possibly as a suicide bomber) to bring down Parliament and assassinate King James I. He was caught, tortured and executed on the gallows, dying not with a bang but a whimper.
In his last year Eliot wrote about the anthologizing of his poems and, while he indicated that in his later years he was more fairly represented than when he was younger, he parenthetically and humorously added, alluding to "The Hollow Men": "(though I should be glad to hear no more of a bang and a whimper)."[1]
[edit] Interpretations
The poem reflects upon Eliot’s skepticism about the men of his time, the posterity, and society as a whole. Eliot tells us that they are the "hollow men" with "head pieces filled with straw, alas". He apparently doesn't stand by the decisions of World War I; he is devastated by the depravity of Europe after the war. He fears that the people of future ages will scorn his generation for their foolishness, but he begs that they be remembered as the hollow men rather than wanton fools.
The roots of Eliot's future conversion to Anglo-Catholicism can also be found in The Hollow Men. Fragments of The Lord's Prayer are found in Section V, breaking Eliot's thought flow. The last stanza, frequently quoted, is possibly referring to this prayer when it says "This is the way the world ends/Not with a bang but a whimper."
"The Hollow Men" depicts more than just Eliot's opinion about World War I, it also illustrates his ideas about many of man's greater struggles.
The second stanza seems to play to man's tendency not to live up to expectation. "Shape without form and shade without color".
[edit] Publication information
The poem was first published as now known on November 23, 1925 in Eliot's book of verse Poems: 1909-1925. Eliot is known to collect poems and fragments of poems to produce new works. This is clearest to see in his poems "The Hollow Men" and "Ash-Wednesday" where he incorporated previously published poems to become sections of a larger work. In the case of "The Hollow Men" four of the five sections of the poem were previously published:
- "Poème," published in the Winter, 1924 edition of Commerce (with a French translation,) became Part I of "The Hollow Men".
- Doris's Dream Songs in the November, 1924 issue of Chapbook had the three poems: "Eyes that I last saw in tears", "The wind sprang up at four o'clock", and "This is the dead land." The third poem became Part III of "The Hollow Men".
- Three Eliot poems appeared in the January, 1925 issue of his Criterion magazine: "Eyes I dare not meet in dreams", "Eyes that I last saw in tears", and "The eyes are not here". The first poem became Part II of "The Hollow Men" and the third became Part IV.
- Additionally, the March 1925 of Dial published "The Hollow Men", I-III which was finally transformed to "The Hollow Men" Parts I, II, and IV in Poems: 1909-1925.
[edit] Influence in culture
[edit] Literature
The poem is referenced in Alan Moore's V for Vendetta graphic novel where Guy Fawkes is the inspiration for the character V.
The Nevil Shute novel, On the Beach, takes its name from the second stanza of Part IV of the poem.
This Is the Way the World Ends is used as a title for a modern fantasy book about a post-apocalyptic world by James Morrow.
The last line is referred to in Stephen King's novel The Stand.
[edit] Music
Eliot's poem was the inspiration for The Hollow Men, a piece for trumpet and orchestra by composer Vincent Persichetti.
The song "Hollow Again" by the Christian rock band Project 86 is based on this poem and the line "This is the way the world ends" is repeated many times.
The song "Meant to Live" written by Switchfoot lead singer Jon Foreman is based largely on this poem.
The song "Death of the Robot" by the Experimental Rock band Tub Ring references "The Hollow Men," repeating the phrase "This is the way the universe ends" and "not with a whimper but with a bang."
The song "Longtime" by the band EMF samples TS Eliot's reading of this poem.
The song "The Shadow" by Devo (Total Devo, 1988) contains the lines, "Between the emotion/And the response/Falls the Shadow"
The poem is spoken by Avant Garde group Idiot Flesh.
The song "The Chemicals Between Us" by Gavin Rossdale and his band, Bush (band) featured the line "we're of the Hollow Men, we are the naked ones"--MV
The song "Thine is the Kingdom" by Greek Metal band Rotting Christ contains Part III and Part V of the poem.
The song "The Old Man Smiled" by Throbbing Gristle concludes with the line, "That's the way the world ends/With a whimper".
[edit] Film
Eliot's poem was also a strong influence on Francis Ford Coppola and the movie Apocalypse Now. In the film the character Colonel Kurtz is depicted reading parts of "The Hollow Men." Furthermore, in the Complete Dossier DVD release of Apocalypse Now, there is a 17 minute special feature of Kurtz (played by Marlon Brando) reciting the poem in its entirety. The poem's epigraph is "Mistah Kurtz - he dead" which is a quote from Conrad's Heart of Darkness (although Colonel Kurtz is not shown reading those particular words). Heart of Darkness and its character, Kurtz, was the inspiration for the storyline of Apocalypse Now.
In an episode of the 1995 television series The Maxx, the character of Mr. Gone says, "That's how it ends, Doc. Not with a bang, or a whimper, but with a thwack." (IMDB)
[edit] Politics
U.S. Judge Leonie Brinkema sent convicted terrorist Zacarias Moussaoui to prison for life on May 4, 2006 for his role in the September 11, 2001 attacks. Making a (possibly unintentional) comparison to Guy Fawkes, she said "Mr. Moussaoui, you came here to be a martyr in a great big bang of glory but, to paraphrase the poet T.S. Eliot, instead you will die with a whimper."
The same title is used for a 2006 book by New Zealander Nicky Hager, which purports to give an inside look into the New Zealand National Party based on numerous mysteriously acquired internal emails.
[edit] Games
The first trailer for the video game Halo 3 contains a line "This is the way the world ends"
In one ending for the game Shadowman, the character Legion quotes The Hollow Men: "This is the way the world ends - Not with a bang, with a whimper."
The AI JFK talking through the Colonel at the end of Metal Gear Solid 2 also references the final lines of the poem, "This is the way the world ends - Not with a bang, with a whimper."
[edit] References
- Gallup, Donald. T.S. Eliot: A Bibliography (A Revised and Extended Edition) pp. 33, 210-11 (Harcourt Brace & World 1969)
- ^ Eliot, T.S., The Use of Poetry and the Use of Criticism", 1964 edition, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Preface
