23 pages • 46 minutes read
The Hollow Men
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Symbols & Motifs
Eyes
Eyes are mentioned numerous times throughout the poem. In some cases, it is left ambiguous as to whether there are many pairs of eyes or only one. The first reference is at the end of the first canto when the speaker says, “Those who have crossed / With direct eyes” (Lines 13-14). This suggests that people who cross over to their respective afterlives are looking straight ahead, rather than to the past or looking away in fear. By doing this, they become worthy of a fate that is out of reach to the hollow men. In the next canto, the speaker becomes more aware of the eyes around them, reflecting on the penetrating eyes that haunt their thoughts:
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 (Lines 19-23).
The punctuation intentionally leaves some of the content ambiguous; the eyes may be in “death’s dream kingdom” (Line 20) waiting for them, yet are not appearing in that moment. Alternatively, the eyes may be ones that the speaker encounters in their dreams, but that do not appear in the kingdom of death; there, different, kinder eyes are present and waiting for those who cross over. The muddiness of the speaker’s perception of these eyes heightens their sense of confusion and loss. They are caught between the image of eyes as a dark, malignant force and the image of eyes as a ray of sunlight illuminating something broken. Whether these eyes are one and the same is left to the reader to interpret.
In the fourth canto, the speaker returns to this idea, saying, “The eyes are not here” (Line 52). Now, the hollow men are gathered by the river. This line can be read either as disappointed or relieved—or a combination of the two. The speaker may be grateful that the eyes they “dare not meet” have not followed them, or bemoaning the fact that through their journey, they have not yet found the eyes that are waiting for them. Toward the end of the canto, the speaker calls the hollow men “[s]ightless, unless / [t]he eyes reappear” (Lines 61-62). This suggests that these eyes of heaven, or of a god-like figure, will become the guiding light that ultimately shows the men their way.
Effigies
Effigies, or constructed human-like figures, are first alluded to in the opening epigraph: “A penny for the Old Guy” (Epigraph). This is a reference to the stuffed effigy of Guy Fawkes, which would be burnt in a symbolic sacrifice. The poem then goes on to describe the hollow men in a similar fashion:
We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw (Lines 1-4).
The men are presented as effigies just at the edge of life. Their straw stuffing has both a positive and a negative connotation: On the one hand, someone who is made of straw—like the Scarecrow of The Wizard of Oz—cannot feel pain. These men have transcended human weakness and can no longer feel physical distress. However, the lack of feeling also extends to their ability to think clearly, to empathize, and to experience joy. They are “hollow” in the sense that they have lost their capacity to feel.
In the second canto, there is a reference to these effigies that the hollow men have adapted as “deliberate disguises:” “Rat’s coat, crowskin, crossed staves / In a field” (Lines 32-34). The speaker has chosen animals that are associated with death and contagion, and the “crossed staves” (Line 33) are another reference to scarecrows, as well as to the crucifixion of Christ. These costumes suggest a patchwork creation using materials that were readily at hand, like the work of a child at play. Although these images of effigies in a field create a sense of something harmless and benign, they retain a sinister tone and a feeling of staying hidden that informs the way the rest of the poem is read. Indeed, these human scarecrows are placed in a “dry cellar” (Line 10), in a windy field, and in a “dead land” (Line 39) with raised stones. These images not only recall the landscape of a cemetery, but also the trenches and desolate battlefields of World War I. The half-alive, hollow men seem to inhabit a liminal space between the world of the living and the dead.
Stars
Stars are referenced three times throughout the poem, in Cantos II, III, and IV. In the second canto, the speaker describes the voices of the “dream kingdom” (Line 20) as “[m]ore distant and more solemn / [t]han a fading star” (Lines 27-28). Later, this idea is echoed when the speaker refers to “[t]he supplication of a dead man’s hand / [u]nder the twinkle of a fading star” (Lines 43-44). In each case, the star is a beacon of light, yet it is “fading.” Here the star represents hope and the potential for redemption. In the first example, the hollow men perceive this distant light and the idea that it may soon be extinguished; in the second, they have come to a place where they can honor these stone figures beneath the star’s light.
There is a sense that their efforts might give some meaning to the lives of the hollow men, or take them closer to their final destination, but that opportunity hovers eternally just out of reach. In the fourth canto, the speaker expresses that he and the other men will remain, as they are “unless / [t]he eyes reappear / [a]s the perpetual star” (Lines 61-63). In contrast to the stars that were “fading,” this one is “perpetual.” The star still represents this beacon of hope, but the speaker has come to understand that they will never come any closer to it. They cling to the idea that these eyes might reappear as the star of heaven, but there is an underlying idea that they will be in this place waiting forever.
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By T. S. Eliot
