Exploration of the Hollowness of the Modern Men in T.S. Eliot’s “The Hollow Men” (1925): An Analytical Approach

Abstract

T.S. Eliot has reached a stage of maturity in which he confirms the hollowness of the modern men. This realization may be due to his strong religious belief and his personal experience. His religious belief is a mixture of his previous belief and his new religious belief and these have been clear in “The Hollow Men”. Also his personal experience is quite rich as he has lived in the US and moved to England as well as visited Germany and France. Eliot has started the poems with two epigraphs which carry significant meanings and the beginning of the poem is a great stage as it contains the confession of the modern hollow men who act as Mr. Kirtz of The Heart of Darkness . Modern man is empty of spirituality, religion and real love as Eliot presented it in “The Hollow Men”. A textual approached is used along with a historical approach to explore the emptiness and hollowness of the modern man. It was found out that Eliot did not mean to humiliate the hollow men, but he rather praises them for repenting from their sins.