Outcries

Out of all of the poems I read by Eliot this week, “The Hollow Men” caught my eye. In my opinion, the emptiness and darkness of T.S. Eliot’s “The Hollow Men” is what makes it attractive. I think it is safe to say that Eliot’s poems have common themes of death, darkness, emptiness, etc. and with a title like “The Hollow Men” one cannot help but have those themes luring over them while they read Eliot’s work. Eliot’s poem is split up into five sections, and in a way tells a story. My favorite aspect about Eliot’s poem is the contrasts he makes in each section. Even from the beginning of section one Eliot reveals the men are “hollow,” yet “stuffed,” and continues with other contrasts particularly in section V.

            I enjoyed how Eliot uses particular language and wording to project his themes throughout the poem. The language of “straw” “dried voices” “whisper” “death” “broken” “distant” “solemn” “dead land” “cactus land” “fading” “hollow” “prickly pear” (versus the mulberry bush) “Falls the Shadow,” all of these words further project the themes of darkness and emptiness the hollow men are experiencing and feeling.

            Another aspect of Eliot’s poem that stood out to me, were the symbols of the eyes and the two kingdoms Eliot mentions. The eyes appear in the first section:

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.

These particular eyes have gone over to “death’s other Kingdom” and the hollow men want to be remembered by these eyes. When describing the eyes, Eliot compares them to “sunlight on a broken column.” But it seems as if the hollow men are being watched over and smothered by the presence of these “eyes.” Maybe these eyes are not literal eyes, but some type of oppression or fear they feel. This is just my speculation, but I thought it was interesting how Eliot uses eyes as a symbol in his poem.

Also, in the first, third, fourth, and fifth section, the hollow men are speaking as a collective unit using words like “we” “our” “us,” but in the second section it seems as if only one hollow man is speaking. I do not know if this change of voice has any significance in the poem, but I thought it was interesting how the language switched from “we” to “I.”

The theme of hopelessness is very apparent in Eliot’s work. He writes in the second section of his poem:

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.

Is it like this

In death’s other kingdom

Walking alone

At the hour when we are

Trembling with tenderness

Lips that would kiss

Form prayers to broken stone.

The dead man send’s prayers to the stone idols, but those idols do not respond to the dead man, and if the man is dead, how do his prayers even reach the “gods?” This section portrays hopelessness and death. At the end of section four, Eliot continues with the theme of hopelessness and writes:

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 lose kingdoms

In this last of meeting places

We grope together

And avoid speech

Gathered on this beach of the tumid river

Sightless, unless

The eyes reappear

As the perpetual star

Multifoliate rose

Of death’s twilight kingdom

The hope only

Of empty men.

These men Eliot is describing are holding onto a liquid hope. A hope that is not lasting and stable, but they are weak, frail, and hollow. It makes me wonder, what is exactly is the hope of the empty men? Why are they hollow? Why did Eliot write this poem in the first place? Are these real men he is describing, or is he painting a certain image with his writing? All of these questions flooded my mind when I was reading Eliot’s poem and although I can only answer these questions with speculations, I enjoyed the image and feeling Eliot created with “The Hollow Men.”

            The last four lines were my favorite lines of “The Hollow Men.” Eliot writes:

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.

The end of the poem was startling to me. I guess I was not expecting Eliot to end the poem with the world ending, although I should have expected that considering the reoccurring his themes of death and emptiness. Eliot repeats, “this is the way the world ends” three times, and the last line ties the entire poem together, and almost paints the picture of the hollow men truly dying off. The world ended with a “whimper” instead of a “bang.” The whimper, in my opinion, sort of signifies something long, painful, and resistant, whereas a “bang” is quick with little thought behind it. When something ends with a whimper, it is almost as if the thing is hesitant to go or trying to fight against going or dying away. I felt section five of “The Hollow Men” was the most intense section of the whole poem, and up to the last four lines Eliot leads the readers with multiple contrasts, and then BANG!! There’s the end of the poem, ending with a slow, whimper. Although, it may be slightly morbid to enjoy a poem about death and emptiness, I love what Eliot creates with “The Hollow Men,” and it is one of my favorite poems by him.

Comparing poetry is a funny thing. Some poems that are written about totally different topics and have completely different styles of writing (or written in different centuries for that matter) can have attributes in common that you would not normally put together. This is not to say that every poem can be related, because not all poems are meant to have connections, but I find it interesting that even in the poems with the most distinct contrast, there is most likely something to compare the two with. Also, I love Sherman Alexie. I’ve only read one of his books, and have only had a small taste of his poetry, but I thoroughly enjoy reading his work. I came across a poem of his titled, “The Powwow at the End of the World.” Now, I will be honest and say that when I came across the title of Alexie’s poem, it reminded me of the last four lines of Eliot’s “The Hollow Men.” Alexie and Eliot are both referring to different circumstances in their poems, but I felt that Alexie’s poem could share some common themes with Eliot’s. Alexie’s “The Powwow at the End of the World” carries themes of lostness, a hint of emptiness, and carries the weight of something that is incomplete or unfinished. Of course, Eliot and Alexie differ in the way they display these themes in their writing, but I thought it was interesting how the two projected these themes in their poems.

Alexie’s poem repeats, “I am told by many of you that I must forgive and so I shall after…” It would be easy, and maybe correct to read this poem as a Native American cry for justice considering Alexie himself is Native American and writes Native American literature, but one cannot always assume that’s what the poet is implying. But Alexie writes that “after” all of these things are complete, he will forgive. Alexie is waiting for things such as,“that salmon swims upstream, through the mouth of the Colombia and then past the flooded cities, broken dams and abandoned reactors of Hanford.” This is just one example from Alexie’s text, but reading “The Powwow at the End of the World” made me ask the questions: are these things Alexie, or the speaker of the poem, are waiting on impossible to fulfill? Is he saying that after these unreachable desires are met, he will finally forgive? Is there any hope for these desires to be met at all, or is this poem just to prove that these desires can never be met now and that all hope is lost until the end of the world at the ultimate powwow? It is almost as if this powwow will be the consummation or completion/fulfillment of these unmet desires or requests Alexie writes about. Again, this is very different in contrast to “The Hollow Men” by Eliot, but we see similar themes of emptiness and hopelessness in both poems (a bold connection, but I am willing to make it!). I could spend all day trying to weasel connections into both of these poems and read too much into them to find ways to make them similar, but in all honesty I just greatly enjoyed both of these poems, and both poems created the same type of emotion inside of me, which is why I connected the two. Like I have said before, I like that poems make you feel things from just reading words on a page, and I loved the themes both of these poems project. Alexie’s poem produces a heart wrenching kind of emptiness. I felt sympathy and sorrow for the people of the poem, who felt lost, left in despair and forgotten about. Eliot’s poem produces a lonely emptiness. I did not necessarily feel sympathy for the hollow men, but I could feel the emptiness and loss of hope. Also, through Eliot’s theme of death, the end of the world Eliot talks about at the end of his poem is almost longed for. Both of these poems seem like outcries of the speakers of the poem, and a longing for hope is certainly evident.