“The Hollow Men” Introduction

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“The Hollow Men” Summary

“The Hollow Men” Themes

• 

  Emptiness and Cultural Decay

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• 

  Faith and Faithlessness

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Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “The Hollow Men”

• Before Line 1

  Mistah Kurtz-he dead
          A penny for the Old Guy

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 1-4

  We are the hollow men
  We are the stuffed men
  Leaning together
  Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 5-10

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

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 11-12

  Shape without form, shade without colour,
  Paralysed force, gesture without motion;

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 13-18

  Those who have crossed
  With direct eyes, to death's other Kingdom
  Remember us-if at all-not as lost
  Violent souls, but only
  As the hollow men
  The stuffed men.

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 19-23

  Eyes I dare not meet in dreams
  In death's dream kingdom
  These do not appear:
  There, the eyes are
  Sunlight on a broken column

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 24-28

  There, is a tree swinging
  And voices are
  In the wind's singing
  More distant and more solemn
  Than a fading star.

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 29-32

  Let me be no nearer
  In death's dream kingdom
  Let me also wear
  Such deliberate disguises

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 33-38

  Rat's coat, crowskin, crossed staves
  In a field
  Behaving as the wind behaves
  No nearer-
  Not that final meeting
  In the twilight kingdom

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 39-44

  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.

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 45-51

  Is it like this
  In death's other kingdom
  Waking alone
  At the hour when we are
  Trembling with tenderness
  Lips that would kiss
  Form prayers to broken stone.

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 52-56

  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

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 57-60

  In this last of meeting places
  We grope together
  And avoid speech
  Gathered on this beach of the tumid river

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 61-67

  Sightless, unless
  The eyes reappear
  As the perpetual star
  Multifoliate rose
  Of death's twilight kingdom
  The hope only
  Of empty men.

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 68-71

  Here we go round the prickly pear
  Prickly pear prickly pear
  Here we go round the prickly pear
  At five o'clock in the morning.

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 72-77

  Between the idea
  And the reality
  Between the motion
  And the act
  Falls the Shadow
                                          For Thine is the Kingdom

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 78-83

  Between the conception
  And the creation
  Between the emotion
  And the response
  Falls the Shadow
                                          Life is very long

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 84-91

  Between the desire
  And the spasm
  Between the potency
  And the existence
  Between the essence
  And the descent
  Falls the Shadow
                                          For Thine is the Kingdom

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 92-94

  For Thine is
  Life is
  For Thine is the

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 95-98

  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.

  

  

  

  

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“The Hollow Men” Symbols

• 

  Straw

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• 

  Wind

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• 

  Eyes

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• 

  Broken Column

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• 

  Rat's Coat

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• 

  Crowskin

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• 

  Crossed Staves

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• 

  Star

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• 

  Tumid River

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• 

  Multifoliate Rose

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• 

  Shadow

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“The Hollow Men” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language

• End-Stopped Line

  

  

  

  

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• Enjambment

  

  

  

  

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• Caesura

  

  

  

  

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• Alliteration

  

  

  

  

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• Assonance

  

  

  

  

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• Consonance

  

  

  

  

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• Repetition

  

  

  

  

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• Simile

  

  

  

  

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• Metaphor

  

  

  

  

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• Extended Metaphor

  

  

  

  

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• Allusion

  

  

  

  

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“The Hollow Men” Vocabulary

Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.

• Mistah Kurtz
• Old Guy
• Headpiece
• Paralysed
• Gesture
• Motion
• Solemn
• Deliberate
• Crowskin
• Staves
• Supplication
• Grope
• Tumid
• Perpetual
• Multifoliate
• Thine
• Conception
• Creation
• Spasm
• Potency
• Existence
• Essence
• Descent

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Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “The Hollow Men”

• Form

• Meter

• Rhyme Scheme

“The Hollow Men” Speaker

“The Hollow Men” Setting

Literary and Historical Context of “The Hollow Men”

More “The Hollow Men” Resources

• External Resources

  • Modernism — A brief article on modernism, from the Norton Anthology of English Literature.

  • World War I Timeline — A detailed timeline on World War I, put together by the BBC.

  • Who Was Guy Fawkes? — An article about Guy Fawkes and the Gunpowder Plot from National Geographic.

  • T. S. Eliot Reads "The Hollow Men." — Listen to T. S. Eliot recite his own poem aloud.

  • Biography of T. S. Eliot — A detailed biography of T. S. Eliot, from Poets.org.

• LitCharts on Other Poems by T. S. Eliot

  • Four Quartets: Burnt Norton

  • Journey of the Magi

  • La Figlia Che Piange

  • Morning at the Window

  • Portrait of a Lady

  • Preludes

  • Rhapsody on a Windy Night

  • The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

  • The Waste Land