T.S. Eliot’s The Hollow Men: Exploring Self-Realization

Type :

School essay

Pages :

4 pages

Format :

.doc

Published date :

10/02/2007

Category :

Philosophy & literature

Sub category :

Literature

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Summary :

When reading ?The Hollow Men?, by T.S. Eliot, one's immediate response might be to consider it against to context of which it was written
Like Heart of Darkness, ?The Hollow Men? is a voyage inside. In other words, to consider literature at its most effective is to relate to it so symbolically that it renders life itself of the most ingenious symbolism, unavoidable and essentially poetic
In the same way that we may relate to the poem in two different ways, so too, the poem presupposes two kinds of men, the spiritually dead and the spiritually awake.
Because self-realization, like Analytical Psychology's individuation process, is not one particular state but an irregular sequence of flux and dynamic, the poem can be said to flow readily towards its own core.
In section I, the narrator speaks of those who have crossed to ?death's other Kingdom,? and in section III he wonders about the condition of this realization
To the writer, it seems to make no difference whether we interpret this sterility to be solely psychological or social, since in essence there really is no difference when considering that life is inherently symbolic
Section V opens with the childlike meter reminiscent of the mulberry bush, the likes of which originated at Wakefield Prison in West Yorkshire, England in a prison yard
But what is this Shadow. First of all, I think it's important to note that the S is capitalized as is Kingdom
Awakening is for him with the heart of darkness, the slayer of Kurtz, becoming the darkness that slips away from between the cracks of things.

Abstract

When reading "The hollow men", by T.S. eliot, one's immediate response might be to consider it against to context of which it was written. Such context may be purely historical or may revolve around the author's social life. All of these accounts may prove significant in assessing the poem correctly or even way off, such details often vary, but what is certain is that it is difficult to find a poem or any work of art that does not give insight into the artist's life experience.