The Hollow Men

T.S Elliot

As I was reading T.S. Eliot’s writings I noticed that he uses a lot of references to other people and what they write about. For example in The Hollow Men he uses the “multifoliate rose” which is a referenced to Part 3 of the Divine Comedy, by Dante Alighieri being used to describe heaven (line 64). He speaks a lot about heaven and uses references to the Lord (and the Lord’s Prayer, “for Thine is the Kingdom” line 77) quit a bit throughout his writings, not just in The Hollow Men.
I liked reading the Hollow Men for a few different reasons. One, it made me think and use my imagination and two, I think that T.S. Eliot has a fantastic way of using his words to describe the feelings and views that these men, who were not the best of men, seemed to have on hope and religion.

He starts this poem with talking about the effigies that the children made used to insult Guy Fawkes on the day of his execution. He writes, “Leaning together headpiece filled with straw” (line 3-4). He goes on to describe it as, “Shape without form, shade without colour, paralysed force, gesture without motion” (line 11-12). I thought about this, paralysed force, gesture without motion. How can you gesture without motion, since the definition of gesture is a movement made with a part of the body in order to express meaning or emotion? Not to mention they are comparing a dummy to Fawkes and Kurtz.

My favorite lines through the whole poem are 14-17 that says, “Remember us-if at all-not as lost violent souls, but only as the hollow men the stuffed men”. If you remember the men please do not have ill thoughts as them being violent, even though they are.

When I read the section on the prickly pear (line 68-71), it made me laugh a little bit because I was finally able to know where this came from! I heard this rhyme when I was in Jr. High from some friends who were singing it. I just thought they made this up themselves.