Introducing 

Prezi AI.

Your new presentation assistant.

Refine, enhance, and tailor your content, source relevant images, and edit visuals quicker than ever before.

Loading…
Transcript

T.S. Eliot- "The Hollow Men"

Biography

T.S.Eliot- "The Hollow Men"

  • T.S. Eliot (Thomas Stearns Eliot) was born and spent his youth being the youngest of seven children in America.
  • He occupied most of his life in England and other parts of the world.
  • He considers himself "a New Englander in the South West" (SW meaning St. Louis, Missouri) as said and published in 1928.
  • Eliot had joined the Church of England. However, in an interview 30 years after that quote was published he confirmed that his emotions and ideas of his poetry often belonged to America but could also belong to England as well. He does not like one more than the other.
  • He studied at Oxford and Harvard in many parts of the world including America, New England, and Germany which have been said to influence his poetry
  • Eliot's started to have success around the early 1900's for he edited and contributed poems to the Harvard Advocate
  • Later, his personal life was affected towards mid 1900's. He had several failed marriages around the 1920's and he had his first wife died in 1947.
  • Within 10 years of time period he wrote many poems with a somber like mood. Some being "The Hollow Men", "The Waste Land", and "Ash Wednesday". These poems are all written shortly after the end of WWI.

"Hollow Men" and World War I/T.S. Eliot

  • The poem The Hollow Men by T.S. Eliot represents the view of men or women in a war or, better yet a world war .
  • These figures in the poem are said to have their "headpiece filled with straw". This could be associated with soliders having one thing that they were taught, to fight.
  • When the figures want to speak out they can't because nobody will listen. This could be looked at as the strict rules of a soldier. If they have individual thoughts they would'nt be heard by anyone.
  • The figures also had qualites that a person could never have "shape without form". This could be referring to armies not having any particular shape and not having any purpose to their actions other than to wipe out the other.
  • Eliots allusion "deaths other kingdom" could represent how many soldiers died during World War I.
  • Sometimes society only thinks of men or women in the battle field as figures that only have qualities of fighting. Society often forgets in battle that they too have personal businesses and are not just people that are used and trained and taught to do only one thing, fight.
  • The mood of this poem is sad and solemn which would be explained by the time period that this was written (1925). Eliot was both in marrige issues and was still in dispair about WWI.

Historical Backround

Poem Analysis

  • World War I began in June 1914 in result of the Austro-Hungarian Archduke Francis Ferdinand by Serbian nationalists in the frame of an already tense environment.
  • Other near by country stepped in to help out their friend country which resulted in the size of the war to grow.
  • The war ended on November 11 1918 with a signed armistice between the allied powers and Germany
  • By the end of the war there were nearly 320,000 American casualties and 112,000 Americans killed.
  • In total there was 40 million casualties and 9 mill dead.
  • "The Hollow Men" uses many metaphors to refer to a regular person being that these "Men" are not regular men.
  • These figures have half qualities in most things of a person
  • Their heads are stuffed with straw but yet empty. This means that these figures are only taught one thing by others and they have nothing to say as an individual.
  • When Eliot refers to their voices being quiet and meaningless he could be indicating that their presence is not recognized and nobody pays attention to what they really are.
  • In the second stanza, Eliot explains that they again have qualities that are impossible to have- "Shape without form".
  • Towards the end Eliot states an allusion "deaths other kingdom" alluding to heaven. He wants the figures to tell the reader that they do not want to be thought of as something that has not made it to heaven after they died but as figures that are a like a person.
Learn more about creating dynamic, engaging presentations with Prezi