The Hollow Men
We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats' feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar
Shape without form, shade without colour,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion;
Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to death's other Kingdom
Remember us-if at all-not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men
The stuffed men.
Summary of The Hollow Men
The speaker declares that he is part of a group of empty people. These people are stuffed, perhaps like scarecrows, and lean against each other with their heads full of straw. "Oh well," the speaker says. Their voices are so dried-out that they can barely be heard when they whisper to each other, and what they say is as meaningless as the rustling of wind in dead grass, or the skittering of rats over shattered glass in a dry cellar.
These men are bodies without definition, shadows without color, frozen strength, action without movement.
Those who’ve crossed over to the other kingdom of the dead, looking straight ahead the whole time, don't remember these hollow men as lost, angry spirits (if they remember them at all), but rather as empty people, as people stuffed, metaphorically, with straw.
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