T.S. Eliot 'The Hollow Men' pg.1599

Oh, man! T.S. Eliot, to what planet is your mind on? I have discovered that the High Modernism is way out there!

I read ‘The Hollow Men’ before I read ‘The Waste Land’, and I am truly glad I did! If I would have read it last, I would not have been able analyze it as my brain could not function after ‘The Waste Land’. At least with ‘The Hollow Men’, I could get a small semblance of what Eliot was talking about in this poem, whereas with ‘The Waste Land’ I was only able to add on to my vocabulary.

The whole poem ‘The Hollow Men’ centers around the title itself. A hollow man is like a puppet or a robot that does what it is told to do and only when is it is told. They do not think for themselves; they do not have a mind of their own, they see what they are told to see. They are forgettable.

However, Eliot cautions not to forget the hollow men, as they are just as human as the rest of humanity. They may be controlled by the puppeteer, but they are not ‘nothing’; they are someone. Though their ’dried voices, when we whisper together, Are quiet and meaningless as wind in dry grass’, they do have a voice. They are not just ‘lost violent souls’, but hollow men that are controlled by their puppet masters. As we all are at some point in our life. Does that make us forgettable and hollow? No, it does not, for everyone is someone.

Eliot goes on to discuss how even hollow men will have to face the ‘cactus land’ of thorns and barrenness to get to the ‘twilight kingdom’. They too will face death. And in death, they too will face their judgment accordingly.

I thought it was interesting that Eliot referred to the Lords Prayer right after he quoted a revised children’s song. However, with that being said, to use the term ‘prickly pear’ instead of ‘mulberry berry bush’ is indicative to the meaning that everyone will have a long, thorny journey to reach their goal of their own sweetness. This being heaven for some, and for others, it my be something totally different and even tangible in some cases.

Not every person fits into the same mold. Just because they may seem different, like Eliot himself ( on offense), or even indifferent, does not mean that they are ‘hollow men‘, and that they have no meaning. No one should be forgettable.

“ This is the way the world ends Not with a bang but a whimper”. Seems to me that T.S. Eliot needs to take his own advise. Whimpers are forgettable, bangs are heard around the world and never forgotten.