1. Comment on the source of the title “Hollow Men”.
Eliot combined the title of a romance “The Hollow Land” by William Morris and that of a poem “The Broken Men” by Rudyard Kipling and got the title “Hollow Men”. The phrase “Hollow Men” was used by Brutus in Shakespeare’s play ‘Julius Caesar’. The title also alludes to Conrad’s ‘Heart of Darkness’.
2. “Shape without form, shade without colour / Paralysed force, gesture without motion”. To whom the reference has been made? What do these lines indicate?
The reference has been made to The Hollow Men who peopled the world which is neither ‘on sea or land’, but which exists merely in the imaginative world of Eliot which he calls ‘death’s dream kingdom.’
The lines bring out the moral and spiritual condition of the hollow men. They lack purpose and a sense of direction and completely paralysed of the mental and spiritual faculties.
3. “Those who have crossed / With direct eyes, to death’s other kingdom”–Bring out the implication of ‘death’s other kingdom’ and ‘direct eyes’.
“The Hollow Men” is a poem expressing spiritual deadness, horror and despair. “Death’s other kingdom” implies a higher moral and spiritual state than that of “death’s dream kingdom” of a death-in-life existence inhabited by the hollow men. The source of this extract is from Dante’s ‘Divine Comedy’.
The ‘direct eyes’ signify the self-scrutiny required to attain this higher state.
4. “Such deliberate disguises / Rat’s coat, crow skin, crossed staves / In a field” – What type of disguise does the speaker want to assume? What light does this intention of the speaker throw upon his character?
The speaker wants to assume the disguise of the scarecrow. The lines under quotation also refer to the custom of hanging up the bodies of the birds that damage the crops in order to frighten away others of the same species.
The disguise that the speaker would assume is dehumanizing and emphasize his hollowness and self-contempt verging on despair.
5. “This is the dead land … here they receive / The supplication of a dead man’s hand / Under the twinkle of a fading star” –Who receive “The supplication of a dead man’s hand?” What does the phrase ‘fading star’ indicate?
A distilled vision of the landscape of ‘The Waste Land’ is evoked in the third section of “The Hollow Men”. A dead, arid land, like its people raises stone image of spirituality which are supplicated by the dead.
‘Fading Star’ establishes a sense of remoteness from reality. It signifies an ideal or a higher spiritual reality which the protagonist can glimpse but not attain.
6. “Lips that would kiss / From prayers to broken stone” – Explaining the context write a few lines on the image evoked in these lines.
The hollow men wonder if ‘death’s other kingdom’ would the same as the cactus land of this life; dry, empty, hollow. To this images evoking horror is added one of the horrors of death which frustrates pleasures of love and even sensuality. The lines under quotation presents the image of frustrated love. They echo a line uttered by James Thomson “Lips only sing when they cannot kiss”.
7. “In this hollow valley / This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms.” – What is the significance of this extract?
The lines refer to the Biblical story of Samson who slew a thousand Philistines with a ‘new jawbone of an ass’, when Samson was dying of thirst, God cleaved a hollow place in the jaw. From that hollow place water came out and Samson drank it to revive his spirits. This allusion suggests a contrast between the Biblical landscape and that presented by the poem ‘The Hollow Men’ where there is no spiritual wholeness or sustenance.
8. “The eyes reappear / As the perpetual star / Multi foliate rose / Of death’s twilight kingdom” – To what does the lines “The eyes reappear / As the perpetual star” allude? Do these ‘eyes’ appear before the hollow men?
The line alludes to Beatirce’s eyes in ‘Purgatorio’ which are described by Dante as ‘eyes of light’. Beatrice’s eyes are ‘eyes of light’, light standing for truth. The eyes were at first dreaded; then their absence was registered with emotion verging on despair; now they are acknowledged as representatives of divine light and the only hope of salvation. But these eyes do not appear before the hollow men. They hope in vain for them. In ‘death’s twilight kingdom’ they cannot appear and the hollow men are condemned to live eternally without any hope.
9. “Here we go round the prickly pear / Prickly pear prick pear / Here we go round the prickly pear.” – What does the poet mean in these lines?
Section V of Eliot’s poem “The Hollow Men” begins with the lines that parody a nursery rhyme “Here we go round the mulberry bush.” Eliot substitutes ‘the mulberry bush’ symbolic of fruition and new life for ‘prickly pear’ suggestive of winter and death. The hollow men meaninglessly go round and round the same world of winter and death.
10. In section V of Eliot’s poem “The Hollow Men”, we find that the expression “falls the shadow” appear thrice. What does it suggest?
The Hollow Men go round and round the same world of winter and death. The appearance of the expression the fall of shadow’ in three consecutive stanzas suggest melancholy and scepticism. The fall of the shadow’ in each section is the paralysis of the will or the negation of the will. It is this paralysis which renders any action impossible which incapacitates man. The mind may be logically prepared to act but the paralysis of will negates the idea’ or ‘the motion’ which remains unrealised and becomes sterile. The shadow falls between the conception of an idea and ‘the creation’ of it in action and between the urge of emotion and realisation of it in action.
11. How does the poem ‘The Hollow Men’ end? / What is the significance of the concluding lines of the poem?
The poem ‘The Hollow Men’ ends in the loud noise parodying a line from the nursery rhyme-“this is the way we clap our hand”. The live “This is the way the world ends” suggests that the world of the hollow men have no gaiety, no revelry, no bang but only the whimpering groans of the souls dying, but unable to die.