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T. S. Eliot's The Hollow Men

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Can words possibly have the power to move us? To change us? To affect us? Of course they do. The power that words contain is way beyond our measure. They can build us up just as easily as they can tear us down. They can take us to places. They can make us feel things we've never felt before. Make us think things we've never thought before. Make us do things we've never done before. To reflect about the authority that 26 letters contain is chilling. Fortunately, not all works of literature have this frightening affect, however, the dark poem "The Hollow Men" most definitely does. Within 431 words, T. S. Eliot was able to affect the reader emotionally, intellectually and politically. This poem can easily achieve the vaunted status as high …show more content…
"The Hollow Men" forces a very gloomy and negative vibe upon the reader. Not only does the poem contain a depressing story but it is also very disturbing because it speaks the truth about ourselves. As Cesar A. Cruz once said, "Art should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable." This quote is able to accurately capture the world we live in. For those passive people who choose to ignore the fact that we live empty lives, are forced to face reality as they read the poem and grasp that we are just as hollow as the hollow men. And those that are already aware of the brutal world we live in, should be soothed, for this poem is able to express what they've been thinking all along. T.S. Eliot ensures that we undergo the emptiness, the depressing, the paralysing feeling when reading his work. Throughout the poem, he consistently uses repetition of "the hollow men...the stuffed men" to reinforce and enclose the ideas of emptiness and hollowness. …show more content…
Eliot's poem has much more depth than just a story about hollow men. Throughout the piece, he uses many symbols and images to make his readers' brains race. Along with symbolism and imagery, Eliot also uses juxtaposition to stimulate the reader intellectually. The poet's use of the Shadow in part five, arouses the reader. For in that part, there is a sense of contradictory, when two concepts that naturally follow one another is interrupted. Additionally, within the poem, the place "death's other kingdom" showcases that there is a world beyond physical death, beyond hell. This "kingdom" the man speaks of is feared and avoided. This place builds to the feeling conveyed throughout the poem about the inevitability of death. "This is the way the world ends, not with a bang but a whimper. " this line concludes the poem and is one of the most power lines in this piece. The phrase states that the world would end pitifully, almost like a dying puppy, instead of the grand ending everyone expects. Eliot wrote this to warn us, that this is how our world will end, and he is right. Humans are the ones responsible for pollution, deforestation, and global warming. Humans are the ones who are ensuring that the world will end slowly and pathetically. Humans are the ones at fault and for those few individuals who want to stand up and make a change, are stopped. Silenced, just like the hollow men. Another important symbol

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