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Analysis of “The Hollow Men” and “The Wastelands” by T.S Elliots
Different literary authors have unique characteristics that help readers distinguish every one of them. One of the authors whose unique style of writing has changed the literary world is T.S Eliot. His poems and books have made him get recognized as one of the most important poets and critics of English literature. Most of his works have great insight into people’s lives as they contain valuable insight into people and their influences. This article is a psychoanalytical criticism of two of Elliot’s poems, “The Waste Land” and “The hollow men.” Through these poems, the author looks to share his thoughts on how he imagines life to be.
“The hollow Men,” a five paragraphed poem, can be interpreted in different ways depending on a variety of factors. The author talks about hollow men who he compares to a person named Guy Fawkes. The poem’s hollow men are described as hopeless and sightless and as lost people with no conviction. The author, T.S Elliot, uses the poem to express his thoughts about the people’s current way of life. The author sees society as decayed and full of struggles and despair (Waggoner, 101-126). The word hollow in itself is used as a metaphor for the decay of European society and culture. The speaker identifies himself as part of the hollow men and describes them, himself included, them as being dangerous, inhuman, and incapable of taking real action.
Likewise, “The Wasteland” is another poem in which the author expresses his views on how the modern world is decayed. Throughout the poem, the writer sets the precedent of wastelands and decaying life due to decayed morals. The wasteland also provides the author’s view of how life is filled with struggles resulting from the people’s lack of morality (Haque &Fahmida, 77-82). The author conveys these struggles through the use of different literary devices such as symbolism and imagery. TheThe poem’s settingpoem’s setting is also used to emphasize the theme through the landscapes and whether used by the writer. Ominous brown fog surrounds the cities, which are ridden with hatred. Beyond the cities lie deserts that are devoid of life due to lack of water (Haque &Fahmida, 77-82). Elliot uses this setting, combined with the language use and literary devices, to envelop readers into his imagination of the “The Wasteland Land” while connecting it to the real world.
In both poems, there is the use of imagery by the writer. In the third section of “The Hollow Men,” Elliot uses imagery to create a mood of despair and hopelessness. Describing the land as dead sets a depressing and frustrating mood for the reader. Next, Eliot says, “stone images are raised” and also, “here, they receive the supplication of dead man’s hand under the twinkle of a fading star.” By saying this, the author means that stone images get the humble plea of dead men’s hands under a deity whose image is slowly fading. Still, in the third section, it is also said they are awake and alone at the hour when they are “trembling with tenderness” (Elliot, 49), which is to say that they are alone and lonely and, they don’t get companions no matter how much they desire them. The imagery in this section maintains the poem’s sulky mood and emphasizes the hopelessness of the hollow men.
The writer also uses imagery in “The Wastelands” to create a mood of hopelessness and despair. The use of fog imagery is used by the writer to show how the wasteland will always be covered in despair. He references the city, describing it as “Under the brown fog of a winter dawn,” and “Under the brown fog of a winter noon.” Eliot states that Unreal City is constantly covered in brown, as evidenced by the shift in time from dawn to noon. The fog is used as a symbol for cleansing the city. However, the fog’s unnatural brown color indicates its malignant effects on the town. Contrary to the original intent of its symbolism, the fog brings malice towards the area. Life cannot thrive in this location (due to hardships within life), and the fog is a visual representation of it. This shows the reader how prevalent despair is within the wasteland and adds to the universal theme of struggles within life.
In “The Wastelands,” Eliot uses the lack of water and oversaturation of rock that plagues the wasteland to emphasize the idea of despair. He depicts the wasteland as a place close to a desert, evidenced by the quantity of dry land Eliot repetitively considers and rejects the idea of water ever returning to such a setting, “And the dry stone, no sound of water” (Eliot, 24). Here the writer has little hopes of water ever returning to the barren wasteland. He describes the wastelands as being completely covered by a rocky landscape. The land being filled by rocky mountains and having no water represents life’s emptiness in a desert. This further leads to the idea that life will never prosper in such a setting because water also symbolizes life and rejuvenation. On the other hand, the dryness and rockiness symbolize the strenuous life of a desert or the wastelands. The lack of water, heat, and dryness all lead to the theme of despair and struggles within life.
In section four of “The Hollow Men,” the men are said to have hope of gaining sight. Eliot states that they are “sightless, unless the eyes reappear as the perpetual stars” (Eliot, 44). This can be understood as the possibility of hope, with their lives somehow gaining purpose. There is also a possibility of hope in “The Wastelands,” when Eliot describes the painful cycle of life and death, where every month represents a different stage in the cycle of life. Some months bring death, while others bring life. These few instances in life show that although life is full of despair and struggles, brief moments of joy are also found throughout the cycle. By stating, “winter kept us warm, covering earth in forgetful snow,” Eliot describes how winter can bring snow and small amounts of joy.
However, while both poems provide a chance for hope, the author shows how difficult it is for positive change to occur. The poem “The Hollow Men” ends with a whimper, with Elliot accepting that the hollow men are lost, even spiritually (Abbas, 20-39). This is as opposed to Guy Fawkes, who he compares the hollow men to, who ended his reign with a bang gaining him some action and excitement. Eliot, however, accepts the fact that the hollow men are lost, hopeless, and blind. Likewise, by the end of the poem “The Wastelands,” Eliot ultimately believes that water will never return to the barren wasteland. Instead, rocks fill the landscape, representing the emptiness of life within a desert. This further leads to the idea that life will never prosper in such a setting because water also symbolizes life and rejuvenation.
Eliot envelops the reader into his imagination of the world through both of the poems. For “The Hollow Men,” the poem’s mood is dull and describes how lost and hopeless the hollow men are. However, it gives the idea of individuals believing in themselves and a chance for hope if they do. In the poem “The Waste Land, ” Elliot also uses the same somber mood to share his imagination of the wasteland to show how the real modern world is decayed. The connection between these two worlds is the overall theme that life is full of struggles. Like in “The Hollow Men,” Eliot also shows that there are good times too, although very rare and hard to come by.
Work Cited
Abbas, Salim Kadhim. “Spiritual and Emotional Sterility In TS. Eliot’s” The Hollow Men.” Misan Journal of Academic Studies 15.30 (2016): 20-39.
Eliot, T. S. “The Waste Land.” (1922). https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/bitstream/handle/2142/30242/elio-wast.pdf?sequence=2
Eliot, T.S. “The Hollow Men.” https://msu.edu/~jungahre/transmedia/the-hollow-men.html
Haque, Nazmul, and Fahmida Pervin. “A Qualitative Analysis of the Poem “The Waste Land” to Investigate Spiritual Sterility, Moral Degradation of the Post-war Modern People and the Path of Salvation.” Advances in Language and Literary Studies 10.5 (2019): 77-82.
Waggoner, Hyatt Howe. “TS Eliot and the Hollow Men.” American Literature 15.2 (1943): 101-126.