Eliot's Diction In The Hollow Men, By T. S. Eliot

Life is meaningless, and the world is going to end. For anybody who sees the world the way it is. They truly know of the negativity it holds. In the poem The Hollow Men, by T.S. Eliot, he views the world in a very negative way. Eliot does not see any purpose in life, only darkness. In this poem, Eliot uses his diction to set the tone and the setting for the rest of the poem. The Hollow Men is broken up into five sections. In the first section it is an introduction to the hollow men. They are in a circle, looking like scarecrows. They are stuck in a realm of half world half Hell, not making the entire journey to Hell itself. The hollow men are timid and scared to speak up, because they know that their voice is meaningless. The second section

He says “Our dried voices when we whisper together are quiet and meaningless” (Eliot). Eliot is using these hollowed men and portraying them as scarecrows. They only stand together and whisper together, but their words are not heard to any others, and what they are saying has no meaning to anybody else. Allen Austin, a leader on the national council of the leader of teachers says that Eliot uses a “style of metaphysics in his writing to help get his points across”(310).The use of metaphysics in Eliot's Hollow Men, is seen throughout and built on the diction Eliot chooses to use. Metaphysics are things that people make sense of, but have no physical body. So when Eliot talks about “death’s dream kingdom” he is talking of Heaven and Hell.The building of Eliot's metaphysics through his diction is important to realize what he is trying to get at. That is, the despair of the world, because the hollow men cannot reach Heaven, or

Eliot’s diction can be seen criticising the war with his line “This is the way the world ends Not with a bang but with a whimper” (Eliot). He may be criticising the war, and that many of the men who died did not die because they were shot, hence the bang, but died because of disease or frostbite. P.G Ellis, a member of the Review of English Studies at Oxford University Press says that Eliot understands exactly how “powerful precise phrases and words” are going to be to readers and critics (299). Eliot may have know more about what was going on in the war, and decided the best way to get others to understand was to bring in heavy criticisms. Eliot's choice of how he would word these things are important to bringing in more weight into the matter. F.R Leavis, a member of the Massachusetts Review Incorporation, said in an article on Eliot that Eliot’s “work in sum is of great importance to those who have questions” (9). Eliot is not afraid to write and criticize the world, and the purpose of this is to bring importance to topics, so others do not have to ask many questions. Eliot is a critic of many things, and at the time that this poem was written it is clear to see that he is criticising the war that was