Imagery Depicted Through T.S. Eliots The Hollow Men Essay -- essays r

The imagery depicted in T.S. Eliots poem "The Hollow Men" evokes a experience of desolate hopelessness and lends to Eliots generally cynical view of civilization during this period in history. A reaction of deep and profound disappointment in human being around him is made evident in this stark work, first published in 1925. In this short piece, Eliot enumerates several deep faults he finds in his fellowman, including hypocrisy, unfeelingness and indifference, and leaves the reader with a feeling of overwhelming emptiness. An important feature of this poem is the fact that the narration of the poem is in first person. This establishes Eliots and the readers relationship to the images and ideas presented. When the poem begins "We are the hollow men" rather than "They are ..." or "You are..." the reader is immediately included somehow in this description, along with Eliot himself. This type of narration creates a sensation of common "hollowness " and by the end of the poem, therefore, a sense of common responsibility and guilt. Early in the poem, Eliot creates a world of desolation. The idea of dryness is stress by the repetition of the word "dry" in the first stanza, where we read of "dried voices," "dry grass" and "dry cellar." When he mentions the sound of "rats feet over disquieted glass" he succinctly and subtly prods at our anxieties about urban disease and decay, showing us a sort of fle...