Futility of Life Exposed in T.S. Eliot's The Hollow Men
The 'Hollow Men', by T.S Eliot, is a reflection on the emptiness, futility and misery of modern life. It is also a reflection on the problems involved in human communication, and on the meaning (or lack of it) to life. Eliot uses religious and desert symbolism, biblical and literary allusions, repetition, parody and deliberately sparse, controlled language to convey the themes of the poem.
The poem opens with two epigraphs - "MISTAH KURTZ - HE DEAD" and "A penny for the Old Guy". The first epigraph refers to a character called Mr Kurtz from Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness. This character turned to evil in the jungle and died as a violent cannibal. The phrase used by Eliot is spoken, in the novel, by an African servant when he reports Kurtz's death (hence the broken English). The narrator, Marlow, is on a mission to rescue Kurtz who has resorted to a savage life in the jungle. Mr. Kurtz has lost all sense of human civilization, and this notion is paralleled in Eliot's poem.
The second epigraph, "A penny for the old guy", relates to the Gunpowder Plot of 1605. This conspiracy was led by English Catholics who attempted to blow up the Houses of Parliament, King James I, his queen, and his oldest son. Guy Fawkes, a Roman Catholic, was one of the leaders who participated in this plot in anger of James' refusal to grant further religious toleration. Today, the English celebrate this conspiracy with an effigy of Guy Fawkes which they burn in recognition of the plot's failure. The phrase "A penny for the Old Guy" is also used by child beggars in England, to refer to straw figures which they make and place next to themselves. This immediately ...
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... brave enough to risk not conforming, not 'doing what everyone else is doing', and not hiding our emotions and thoughts from each other if we want to lead fulfilling lives.
Works Cited:
1 Crawford, Robert (ed), 1987. The Savage and the City in the Work of T.S. Eliot, Clarendon Press, New York.
2 Crawford, Robert (ed), 1987. The Savage and the City in the Work of T.S. Eliot, Clarendon Press, New York.
3 Miller, Hillis, J, 1965. Poets of Reality: Six Twentieth-Century Writers. Harvard University Press, New York.
4 Miller, Hillis, J, 1965. Poets of Reality: Six Twentieth-Century Writers. Harvard University Press, New York.
5 Crawford, Robert (ed), 1987. The Savage and the City in the Work of T.S. Eliot, Clarendon Press, New York.
6 Spurr, David, 1965. Poets of Reality: Six Twentieth-Century Writers. Harvard University Press, New York.
6th ed. New York: St. James Press, 1996. Literature Resource Center. Web. 26 Jan. 2014.
Maxwell has a return from the archetype of the hero?s journey. Maxwell returns by saving Iggy Lee?s life and his own. Maxwell gets all his love from his grandparents, because now they believe that he is not like his dad (Killer Kane). When Maxwell returns, his best friend was about to die, because his organs were getting to big for his body, but while he was dieing he gives Maxwell a empty book saying, ?Max please write all the adventures and everything we have done together, this will make me feel better?.
Meyer, Michael. The Bedford Introduction to Literature. Ed. 8th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2008. 2189.
Enemy tribes fight and put curses on each other. To become allies again they must trade and negotiate. Then, the tribes combine together with a large peace celebration. They conduct a dance in ceremonial dress and test each others strength.
Blanche DuBois represents the delicacy of the vulnerable mind that Tennessee Williams aimed to portray in his plays, but also his own fear of going insane. Blanche
Throughout Tennessee William’s play “A Streetcar Named Desire,” Blanche Dubois exemplified several tragic flaws. She suffered from her haunting past; her inability to overcome; her desire to be someone else; and from the cruel, animalistic treatment she received from Stanley. Sadly, her sister Stella also played a role in her downfall. All of these factors ultimately led to Blanche’s tragic breakdown in the end.
T.S. Eliot, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock. The Norton Anthology of English Literature. 6th ed. Vol. 2. ed. M. H. Abrams New York, London: Norton, 1993.
Rpt. in Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism. Ed. Linda Pavlovski. Vol.
Rothenberg, Jerome and Pierre Joris, eds. Poems for the Millennium: The University of California Book of Modern and Postmodern Poetry, Vol. 2. Berkeley: University of California, 1998.
In Tennessee Williams’ play A Streetcar Named Desire, main character Blanche Dubois to begin with seems to be a nearly perfect model of a classy woman whose social interaction, life and behavior are based upon her sophistication. The play revolves around her, therefore the main theme of drama concerns her directly. In Blanche is seen the misfortune of a person caught between two worlds-the world of the past and the world of the present-unwilling to let go of the past and unable, because of her character, to come to any sort of terms with the present.
American Literary Realism, 1870-1910. Vol. 8, Issue 1 - "The 'Standard' University of Texas, 1975. http://www.ut Gilman, Charlotte.
The play connects to Williams’s life and his struggle to find satisfaction in his sexual relationships. “Throughout his life Tennessee Williams was driven from one sexual encounter to another, exactly like Blanche, and like B...
Roberts, Edgar V., Literature: An Introduction to Reading and Writing, 4th Compact Edition, Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall, 2008, print
His two sons had to carry upon themselves the ideals that his father placed on them after years and years of living inside his house; “Thus Willy's refusal to accept life on its own terms results in nothing but disorder and fragmentation for those he loves most.” (Scheidt) The Death of the Salesman is an example of the mindset that many people in America had back then, and can allow to an individual to see the desires that we share with Willy Loman in the present time such as cheating, lying and wrong perceptions about
The important role of “success” in Death of a Salesman is Willy Loman working hard for many years and no one appreciating him until they need or want something from him. It focuses on Willy’s failures and and success and conflicts with his family.