T. S. Eliot "The Hollow Men" P.1599


“We are the hollow men”
“We are the stuffed men”

It occurred to me while reading this piece that “we” could be any number of groups of people. Who is Eliot referring to, a religious group, the leaders of government, business giants, or maybe just the society as a whole? Does he include himself in this grouping? I think that this is also a poem we can all place our own empty souls into. Almost as if a checkpoint on life. Are “we” living a hollow existence? Or a gauge to measure others, are they really living a life or is there death among the living? In the first section of this poem Eliot talks about how the “dried voices…whispered together” I can see our modern day political rhetoric. Each candidate making the same meaningless promises, never coming to pass. In hearing these “dried voices” it does become blur barley recognizable one from the other and invoking about as much emotion as “rats feet over broken glass” would.

I really started looking at myself after reading this. How horrible would it be to become:

“Shape without form, shade without colour,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion”

Though I often feel this pressure coming on, forces of society, conforming me to its set standard. I strive to be free from its grasp. Not set by rules or meaning, but an explorer of ideas, pulling them into me and pushing them out to everyone around me. I know this is inside me, and at times I am a solid from, bright and colorful, with fluid swift motion. What darkens my dreams, stops my progress and mutes my colors? The complexity we form around our lives, the day to day business we make, endless schedules, trying to be what we are ‘supposed to be‘. Silly things really like make the best cupcakes for the school bake sale, have the kids in music, sports, and art classes to be “well rounded”. This idea of a cookie cutter person, who is all he or she is ‘supposed to be’, these are the “we” who are hollow, dead among the living. Living without real purpose or passion. Letting all of those dreams inside burnout, only to be met again in “death’s dream kingdom” the place of sorrow and regret of a life never lived.