The Hollow Men

“The Hollow Men” was first published in 1925, when T.S. Eliot’s literary stardom was on the rise. It was written only a few years after Eliot’s “The Waste Land,” which shares many similar themes and influences and is considered his most prominent work. Both are considered part of the Modernist movement, which was characterized by a shift away from the more lyrical and pastoral poems of past generations toward the modern experience of innovation, industry, and urban living. These poems experimented more with shape and form, as Eliot does here.

Like “The Waste Land,” “The Hollow Men” uses patchwork motifs from other literary sources (perhaps a predecessor of the “found poetry” and “blackout poetry” styles of today). In the epigraph, Eliot directly references Joseph Conrad’s novella Heart of Darkness (1899). The quote is a reference to Captain Kurtz, an ambitious ivory trader travelling through Africa. Although Kurtz is personally and financially successful, other characters comment on the hollowness and immortality of the character. By using his death as the poem’s opening line, the poet frames this piece as the potential next stage in this character’s “hollow” journey. Kurtz’s misrule and misappropriation of power in the novella parallels Eliot’s own fear of the effects of the World War I on European civilization.