

The Hollow Men









The Hollow Men by T.S. Eliot





Mistah Kurtz - he dead.



A penny for the Old Guy





I



We are the hollow men

We are the stuffed men

Leaning together

Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!

Our dried voices, when

We whisper together

Are quiet and meaningless

As wind in dry grass

or rats' feet over broken glass

In our dry cellar



Shape without form, shade without colour,

Paralysed force, gesture without motion;



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.







II



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

There, is a tree swinging

And voices are

In the wind's singing

More distant and more solemn

Than a fading star.



Let me be no nearer

In death's dream kingdom

Let me also wear

Such deliberate disguises

Rat's coat, crowskin, crossed staves

In a field

Behaving as the wind behaves

No nearer -



Not that final meeting

In the twilight kingdom









III



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

Waking alone

At the hour when we are

Trembling with tenderness

Lips that would kiss

Form prayers to broken stone.









IV



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 lost kingdoms



In this last of meeting places

We grope together

And avoid speech

Gathered on this beach of this tumid river



Sightless, unless

The eyes reappear

As the perpetual star

Multifoliate rose

Of death's twilight kingdom

The hope only

Of empty men.











V



Here we go round the prickly pear

Prickly pear prickly pear

Here we go round the prickly pear

At five o'clock in the morning.



Between the idea

And the reality

Between the motion

And the act

Falls the Shadow



For Thine is the Kingdom



Between the conception

And the creation

Between the emotion

And the response

Falls the Shadow



Life is very long



Between the desire

And the spasm

Between the potency

And the existence

Between the essence

And the descent

Falls the Shadow



For Thine is the Kingdom



For Thine is

Life is

For Thine is the



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 with a whimper.















Influence: Received and Gained

The Heart of Darkness was written and said to be referenced to several pieces of works in literature, but the first two lines in the poem directly allude to Kurtz from Heart of Darkness and to Guy Fawkes, an attempted arsonist of the English house of Parliament, "Mistah Kurtz - he dead" and "A penny for the Old Guy" respectively. The entire poem resembles that exactly of Kurtz, Marlow, and the other characters portrayed in the novella. It states much of the same themes and messages of the book, and the question of moral seems to be the common theme among the film, book, and the poem. The poem is timeless and is still referenced to today's society of men working in the corporate industry.



In a scene in Apocalypse Now, Kurtz is reading Eliot's work towards the end of the film along with his other books ranging from the Holy Bible to The Golden Bough. Besides the adaptation from the novel, Coppola uses the idea of incorporating the poem into the film not just as a theme, but using the physical prose as a line in the film. This shows not only the importance of the poem to the film, but the personal level of relatability that was able to be had on Colonel Kurtz from the film. Indeed, the poem is about his character portrayed from the version of the book.



"Shape without form, shade without colour,

Paralysed force, gesture without motion"



"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 with a whimper"



















T.S. Eliot