The In Betweeners

      The simple words in T.S. Eliot's "The Hollow Men" intertwine, stitching the ideas of the poem together into a seamless sheet. At the center of this sheet is "Between the idea And the reality, Between the motion And the act, Falls the Shadow", which holds the poem together. This "shadow"is  the barren waste where these Hollow Men exist, suspended in between life and whatever comes after. The repetition of the word "dry" and "dried" throughout the first stanza, along with the repeated "broken" imagery that persists throughout the next four, combine to create for the reader a barren and fallen shadow world in which these Hollow Men exist. In this imagery, the pain and suffering of the men is revealed, the repetition of these worlds, seemingly to no avail, mimics the frustration that the Hollow Men feel in being caught in this in-between world where they have no control. However these men have minds, as the reader sees them often thinking about what is on either side of their shadow world. There is the "other kingdom" the "dream kingdom" and the "twilight kingdom", all of which are no more than mental concepts created by the Hollow Men, who cannot know whether these kingdoms are "idea" or "reality". They present these kingdoms as if they are certain of the existence. Yet the simple question, formed of simple words, "Is it like this?" raises another question: do these Hollow Men actually know whether these kingdoms are real? They are caught in this land, a shadow cast by the known reality from which they have come and the idea they have created of where they may go. Behind them is the kingdom they came from, and somewhere across the river is a place they think they want to be. These kingdoms are their attempt at conceptualizing and making palpable the possibilities of where they could go when they cross the river out of the shadow.
      The Hollow Men do not appear to have their full humanity, their heads are "filled with straw" and when they talk it is "meaningless". It is as if they cannot stand on their own, "we grope together"; take one out, and they all crash like a child's building block tower. This idea of a lack of independence, which reveals itself through the dismembered body parts floating throughout the poem, "eyes", "lips", "jaw", "voice", supports the crux it where it says "Between the motion and the act". These men apparently cannot act on their own; There are no eyes where they are, lips float in some distant abyss, and their voices, when heard at all, are only a result of them being lifted and carried by the wind. When they were alive before this shadow world, could "act"- make choices and contentious decisions, unlike here, where they are just a hollow mass of men. However they have also not crossed over into some place where they can regain their motion; a place where "the eyes reappear" and their bodies can slowly reform like a "rose" blossoming again in the spring. "Between the idea And the Reality, Between the motion And the act, Falls the shadow" ties everything together- their disjointedness, their dreams, their lack of humanity and their conscious mind, and their existence stuck in between a shadow.

The Fear of Uncertainty

          With the crux of the poem being  “Shape without form, shade without color, / Paralysed force, gesture without motion,” the Wordle only helps us further understand it’s significance, specifically through its most prominent words: men, kingdom, and eyes. Longing to “[behave] as the wind behaves,” these men seek freedom in becoming a “shape without form,” no longer being enclosed in the confines of their own bodies. The men in the poem are “hollow men…stuffed men,” who “whisper together…quiet and [meaninglessly]” as if they were “paralysed” by some external force. Throughout the poem, a great uncertainty is felt as to what each kingdom represents to the hollow men. Though their defined meaning as heaven, hell, purgatory, or limbo remains unclear, it is ascertainable that the hollow men fear specifically “death’s other kingdom” and “death’s dream kingdom,” for fear of the unknown. These kingdoms themselves are “[Shapes] without form [and shades] without color,” full of uncertainty as to what they hold in store. This uncertainty instills fear in the hollow men, causing them to want to lose some of this fear and simply become the “empty men” who accept the indefiniteness of “death’s twilight kingdom.” They eyes constantly mentioned throughout the poem represent the entirety of the crux of the poem. They shapes without form, with no defined color, that can paralyze one through simply appearing or disappearing, and in the same way gesture without motioning. These eyes instill fear in the men because of the uncertainty they bring in either disappearing or reappearing. Through the most prominent words represented in the Wordle, the crux of the poem is aided, giving it a better understanding

Gesture without Motion: A Simple Lack of Effort

I agree with Pamela that the number of times the words appear in the Wordle have no significance in relation to the crux or meaning of the poem. And, I agree with Virginia that the crux of the poem is "Shape without form, shade without colour, /Paralysed force, gesture without motion" (Elliot, 1.11-12). I think it speaks to the general sense of meaningless and lifelessness that the poem gives, but at the same time speaks to the confusion and fear the men feel at the prospect of leaving limbo and not finding the meaning that they so desperately want.
Each of the four phrases in the crux relates to a later quote in the poem that is a key piece in understanding the mystery the is "The Hollow Men." "Shape without form" alludes to the "shadow" (5.9) in which each of these hollow men live. It never takes form and becomes anything because none of the men ever make the choice to get out of limbo, entering into either "death's other Kingdom" (1.14) (heaven) or "death's dream Kingdom" (2.2) (hell). "Shade without colour" is like “the dead land… [the] cactus land” (3.1-2). This existence they’re living is a form of death. They can find sustenance and survive in this “dead land,” but they cannot really live. One can survive on the water and life inside a cactus but what kind of life is that? It is “shade without colour,” life without meaning. “Paralysed force” is “behaving as the wind behaves” (2.17). The wind is an entity that is so free and so impossible to catch that it becomes paralyzing. For these men to be able to “behave as the wind behaves” would be equal to never having to move ever again. It would be effortless. And finally, “gesture without motion” is equivalent to the line “We grope together/And avoid speech” (4.7-8) because of the way these men desperately come together for support and mutual understanding but then never get it because they are too afraid to speak. They make the gesture but are too afraid to complete the motion. That is the same thing as not making a choice and staying in limbo, and the same thing as finding sustenance but not life. They go for whatever they feel is most effortless, because they are afraid that if they try they will find out that their efforts were meaningless.

Paralysis

The wordle is, of course, literally representative of “The Hollow Men” in the sense that it captures the key phrases used by T.S. Eliot, but it fails to mention what are, to me, the most important and overarching themes of this poem: the constant fear and consequent paralysis of the hollow men and, perhaps more importantly, their inability to decide if they should live their life for themselves or for the ultimate goal of pleasing an omnipotent, divine judge.  These “hollow men,” or more accurately, these men who are so full of anxiety and anguish that they have become hollow and useless, are terrified by the idea of the after life. The three “kingdoms” and the possible realms they could represent are out of the control of these men and so they essentially shut down, unable to make decisions for themselves and each other in this “broken jaw of our lost kingdom,” the image of a broken jaw symbolizing their inability to even communicate on a basic level.

 “Life is very long/For Thine is the kingdom” To me, this line represents the dilemma facing the hollow men in this poem. Should they imbue life with their own self- interpreted meaning, under the pretense that life is long and should be enjoyed? Or should the hollow men live to further their souls, and in doing so strive for the “kingdom” which possibly awaits them after death? This, for me, is the crux of the poem, and one that is not well reflected in the wordle because it is not an explicit theme.

Silence

This wordle illustrates an underlying theme of The Hollow Men in its fragmentation of thought—the disjointed repetition of words that, like the men’s swollen souls, amount to nothing. It accurately shows a general breakdown—broken, pear, hollow, kingdom repeated again and again to no avail, to no further understanding. The Hollow Men too struggle with this meaninglessness, their voices falling emptily like “wind in dry grass” upon ears that will not hear. In their frozen world, where silence is far preferable to whispered nothings, the crux of the poem becomes a silent one as well. It is the underlying sentiment beneath the lines “We grope together/ And avoid speech,” that everything has fallen apart yet no one can or will communicate this. The crux is in fact, their silence, their inability to connect even as their souls overflow and they seek sentiment, relationship, any sort of relief from the influx.

This sense is also present in the last stanza, as the speaker attempts to say the Our Father which culminates with the complete breakdown of language in the lines “For Thine is/ Life is/ For Thine is the.” The prayer cannot be finished. The morals are gone, the thoughts are gone and so the words are fading. But tragically, the emotions remain. The Hollow Men are not apathetic men. They feel acutely—evident in the terror of the last stanza: “This is the way the world ends/ Not with a bang but a whimper.” They continue to feel, to fear, but they can no longer share, or bother to as it will fall into nothing, just as everything else has.

The crux of the Hollow Men is terrifyingly intangible, just as their world has become. It can be reflected in broken, disjointed words alone as there simply is no way to express the underlying despair but enduring sentiment the men face. The wordle does manage to impart a sense of fragmentation, of hollow repetitions and broken thought. But out of context, these words really mean nothing and will amount to nothing. They are like the Hollow Men themselves—“stuffed” but truly empty.  

The Humanity of Men

The majority of the words that appear in the Wordle of  T.S Eliot’s The Hollow Men are not astonishing or ground breaking – “kingdom” appears multiple times in the Eliot’s multifaceted take on the afterlife, the word “death” a continuation of this discussion. The larger words are indeed reflective of main themes strewn through out the poem. That being said, there is a difference between themes presented in Eliot’s poetry through repetition of certain words and the crux, the root, of the Hollow Men – the repetition of a word does not make it more important, even in poetry.

         However, the word “men” does stand out to me and relate to what I consider to be the crux of the poem. If you look at the Hollow Men as an emphasis on the humanity of men, the carnal aptitude the human race possesses, that would relate nicely to the brokenness the Hollow Men, and in extension all men, must live with. For me the crux of the poem appears in the third stanza, “Is it like this/In death’s other kingdom/Walking alone/At the hour when we are/Trembling with tenderness/Lips that would kiss/Form prayers to broken stone.” This stanza reiterates a major fear of the Hollow Men, for humanity: to “[walk] alone,” to be alone when we “tremble with tenderness” – when our vitality is brimming within us yet the ways in which we express our emotion and the life within us – the “lips that would kiss” – instead fall on “broken stone.”

         Thus, the repetition of the word “men” serves as an emphasis on the humanness of men, the brokenness of us all.  Perhaps this is why none of us can end with some great deed and be remembered forever like some super hero or Christ, even though we strive to live forever in our “prayers to broken stone,” our hope for salvation, – instead we all end “Not with a bang but a whimper.” 

A Wasted Life

I was not too surprised by the most prominent words the wordle showed to be in the poem but honestly I really do not think that it should matter. In my opinion the crux of a poem should have nothing to do with the number of times it appears. It should depend solely on the individual and how they read the poem and what about it effects them the most not the most commonly used word.

The crux of the poem in my opinion is “this is the cactus land”. This was the line, for me, that let me really understand the hollow men and the lives they are living.  A cactus is a prickly and seemingly useless plant that sits in the middle of a desert. Deserts do not give too much to the rest of the earth. They’re barren, dry and ignored. But cactuses all have water stored inside them. The hollow men have all this built up potential and life inside them that will never be used. Just like how a cactus is rarely opened up to see the water inside. It literally hold the one thing necessary for life inside but no one ever sees that. These hollow men act like they are nothing. They live meaningless, isolated lives and fake their way through it. But, inside all their ambition and life is going to waste. It just sits there, never being accessed. But, just like a cactus, if accessed, it can help the dead world around it. It can give life to everything surrounding it and help the world grow and prosper, but instead, like the hollow men, they just sit in the dead ground and let their lives go to waste.

The Presence of a Fading Star: the Common Man's Belief

            My personal crux of the poem can be drawn from the beginning of the third part of the poem, specifically the stanza regarding the “dead land” and the “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.” This image of spirits raising from their graves, to receive the forgiveness of Christ, only to have a distant, higher divine power act as a witness represents the simple, yet rather complex beliefs of a common man on earth. An ignorant man would accept this as the sole answer for the question: What comes after death?

            The most common words: Kingdom, Death’s, eyes, broken and men; are obviously repeated several times throughout The Hollow Men, in reference to Death’s various kingdoms, the constant presence of the eyes, the various broken images and the hollow, empty and stuffed men. The repetition of the word “kingdom” compares to my personal crux by alluding to the different theories of the afterlife. None of these speculations can be confirmed, yet the men on earth (generally) settle for one idea. It differs from my crux because the majority the words used in the passage above are not repeated very often; making the most common afterlife idea not very common within the context of The Hollow Men.

Broken

The hollow men avoid anything that reveals to them how broken and meaningless their culture and existence has become.  “There, they eyes are sunlight on a broken column” (Eliot l.22-23).  The place being referred to is “death’s dream kingdom” (l.20), one of the three kingdoms alluded to in the poem.  In death’s dream kingdom “eyes are sunlight on a broken column” (l.22-23).  It is a place where the collapse of culture is revealed to the hollow men.   A column is a symbol of structure, foundation, and culture, and is often associated with the culture of the ancient Greeks.  The “broken column” (l.22) is symbolizing a collapse and breakdown of cultural structure.  In the 1920’s the obsession with materialism, as previously examined in Gatsby, caused the loss of all meaningful things like tradition, spirituality, and art, all of which to Greeks heavily emphasized.  “The eyes are sunlight” (l.22-23), shedding light onto this corruption in culture.  However the hollow men do not want to meet these eyes in death’s dream kingdom.   “Eyes I dare not meet in dreams” (l.19) suggests that they do not want to acknowledge that their culture is meaningless and broken.  They do not want to meet these eyes because everything they have been denying, specifically their meaningless existence, will be proven true.

I agree with Maggie on the idea that the Wordle does not accurately portray the crux of The Hollow Men, however there is a small connection.  The word "broken" is relatively large; a term that is used to describe different images throughout the poem.  As previously mentioned, the "broken column" (l.23) represents a corrupt and meaningless culture just as the "broken glass" (l.9), "broken stone" (l.51), and "broken jaw"(l.56) each evoke an image related to this theme.  The repetition of this word "broken" may be related to the crux but other bolded and enlarged words like "kingdom" and "men" are simply repeated for the purpose of context.