The Hollow Men Questions and Answers Summary Analysis
About the Poem The Hollow Men:
The poem “The Hollow Men” is one of the most remarkable poems by the modern poet, T. S. Eliot. The poem was originally published in 1925. It is said that the poem “The Hollow Men” was written by T. S. Eliot being frustrated by the experiences of the European culture and society which T. S. Eliot felt that was nothing but hollowness of idealism.
The society that lacks the courage to perform their idealism and suffer from the lack of mortality. The society that was reflected in the poem during and aftermath of the World War -I.
The poem reflects a desolate world inhabited by empty and defeated people. These people have been described by the poet as ‘dead’ and the world they inhabit as ‘underworld’. These symbolic representation is nothing but the sorry state of the European culture.
Actually the horror of the First World War had pushed the European culture into deep despair and it is well reflected in the poem, The Hollow Men. The poet thinks that this despair is leading the society into nothingness.
In the poem, “The Hollow Men” T. S. Eliot refers to the two kingdoms – ‘death’s dream kingdom’ and ‘death’s other kingdom’. The former, also referred to as “twilight kingdom” and “lost kingdom”, is the death-in-life existence inhabited by the hollow men who are rejected both by heaven and hell.
So they roam pointlessly and stay permanently on the bank of the river, Acheron. They are waiting vainly for Charon, the demon ferryman to carry them over to the other kingdom which is “death’s other kingdom” that implies a higher moral and spiritual kingdom of death.
But the hollow men do not dare to meet the ‘direct eyes’ of the inhabitants of “death’s other kingdom” because they know very well about their own spiritual vacuity. So they scare of the meeting of higher morality and spirituality of those who live a life of decision and purpose in “death’s other kingdom”.
The Hollow Men by T. S. Eliot Analysis:
The poem, “The Hollow Men” by T. S. Eliot is about human nature in this world and relationship of mortality and eternity. The hollow men are not capable of performing any religious deeds. They are stuffed men. They have their ideal but cannot perform. They are nothing but the effigies filled with straw. They do not dare to meet holy virgin. They live on cactus land. They whisper for their nothingness.
These hollow men lament their hollowness. They are stuffed with straw and they are ready for burning. They long for death. They wait to be ferried by Charon, the ferryman.
To them the glaring burning eyes of Charon are both dreaded and desired. The hollow men turn back, desperately to their memories of his world only to find a ‘waste land’, the sun shining down on a fallen tower, wind blowing the sand and distant voices.
They dread the reality of death and after-life, as they dread the reality of life in this world. In death’s ‘dream kingdom’, they want to remain hollow and scare crows like “Rat’s coat crowskin, crossed staves”.
The Part-III of the defines this similitude of death’s kingdom in relation to the worship of hollow men. A dead, arid land like its people, it raises stone images of the spiritual which are supplicated by the dead.
Part IV explores the impulse in relation to the land, which now darkens as the valley of the shadow of death. The land is shown as the valley of the shadow of death through such images as ‘this valley of dying stars’ and ‘this hollow valley’.
Part V develops the reality not the hope of empty men. The hollow men marching in a circle sing a parody of the children’s nursery song: “Here we go round the mulberry bush”. There is no spring but winter and death in the hollow men’s song.
Life is frustrated at every level and this accounts for the nature of the land and the character of its people. Due to this frustration the eyes are obscured and the land is a realm of shadows. The hope of redemption is nullified by the sense of vacuity which engulfs the lives of the hollow men.
The Hollow Men Questions Answers
1) What are the source of the title of the poem, “The Hollow Men”?
Ans: T. S. Eliot explained in 1935 that he got the title of the poem, “The Hollow Men” by combining that of The Hollow Land, a romance by William Morris, that of The Broken Men”, a poem by Rudyard Kipling.
Another source of the title is Shakespeare’s play Julius Caesar (Act IV, Sc II), where the phrase ‘hollow men’ is used by Brutus when he learns that Cassius is not as warm and friendly as he used to be. Brutus says, “But hollow men, like horses hot at hand.”
2) What is the significance of the epigram of the poem The Hollow Men?
Ans: The epigram of The Hollow Men – “A penny for the old Guy” is a version of the children’s cry – ” A penny for the Guy?” – when begging money to buy fireworks for the celebration of Guy Fawkes Day on 5th November every year.
Guy Fawkes Day is celebrated to commemorate the Gun Powder Plot and the execution of Guy Fawkes, the Catholic frantic party responsible for the failed plot to blow up parliament with King James I.
But the epigram is relevant in that the men of the present generation in Eliot’s poem are as hollow as the stuffed effigies of Guy Fawkes burnt on that day.
3) Who are the hollow men?
Ans: The hollow men in T. S. Eliot’s poem, The Hollow Men are one of the four types of soul described in Dante’s The Divine Comedy, who, because of their pointless drifting through life, go to, after death nowhere, to nothingness, reflecting their own vacuity.
Dwelling at ‘death’s dream kingdom’ and rejected both by heaven and hell, they stay permanently on the bank of the river Acheron, waiting vainly for Charon, the demon ferryman to carry them over to the other world which indicates two territories – heaven and hell.
They live without flame and without praise; they never actively choose between good and evil, and therefore are never spiritually alive. They dare to face the men living in ‘death’s other kingdom’ who live a life of decision and purpose.
4) What is “fading star”?
Ans: At a primary level the “fading star” is an echo of the nursery rhyme, “twinkle, twinkle, little star…” as also an echo of Shelley’s Skylark being “a star of heaven” whose music is like “vernal showers/ On the twinkling grass”. They together create an atmosphere of childish and adolescent romantic feeling as remembered by the hollow men.
At another level, the stars are those in The Divine Comedy, Mary being “the living star” and the Trinity “a single star”. Here the stars signify an ideal spiritual reality which the hollow men can glimpse but never attain.
The Hollow Men Questions and Answers (5 – 8)
5) What are the death’s kingdom?
Ans: In “The Hollow Men”, T. S. Eliot refers to two kingdoms – ‘death’s dream kingdom’ and ‘death’s other kingdom’. The former also referred to as ‘twilight kingdom’ and ‘lost kingdom’, is the death-in-life existence inhabited by the hollow men who, rejected both by heaven and hell, drift pointlessly and stay permanently on the bank of the river Acheron, waiting vainly for Charon, the demon ferrymen to carry them over to the other world, i.e. heaven or hell. ‘Death’s other kingdom’ implies a higher moral and spiritual kingdom of death.
6) Why do the hollow men want to “wear/Such deliberate disguises”? What do “Rat’s coat, crowskin, crossed staves” suggest?
Ans: The hollow men want to wear deliberate disguises to resist self-knowledge and to evade responsibility.
The expression “Rat’s coat, crowskin, crossed staves” refers to the scarecrow suggestive of the effigy off Guy Fawkes. There is a note of guilt and self-contempt, since the disguises that the hollow men assume are dehumanizing and emphasize their hollowness.
7) “Eyes I dare not meet in dreams” – Whose eyes are referred to here? Why does the speaker dare not meet them?
Ans: The eyes of the inhabitants of ‘death’s other kingdom’ directed towards oneself for self-scrutiny are referred to here.
The poet himself who is a representative of hollow men dares not meet the ‘direct eyes’ because he knows very well about his own spiritual vacuity that is scared of meeting higher morality and spirituality of those who live a life of decision and purpose in ‘death’s other kingdom’.
8) Why does the poet not want the final meeting in the twilight kingdom?
Ans: The poet who himself is a representative of the hollow men does not want the final meeting with the ‘direct eyes’ of the inhabitants of ‘death’s other kingdom’ because the meeting is dreaded as the eyes will compel the speaker to scrutinize himself and make him aware of his own inadequacy.
But at the same time the meeting is desired as it is the only hope of salvation. The strong negatives testify both to the resistance and to the desire. Here there is an allusion to Dante’s encounter with Beatrice in “Purgatorio XXX”
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