Ernest Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises and T. S. Eliot's The Hollow Men were two very important pieces of literature explaining The Lost Generation that first arose near the 1920's as a result of the First World War and the emptiness of this specific era. The Lost Generation is characterized by their lack of emotion, individuality and character, much like a group of soldier. After delving deeper into the subject, it is quite clear that Eliot's "The Hollow Men" is the better representation of this Lost Generation. Multiple factors in both pieces can explain why Eliot's poem is indeed a better representation. The men in Eliot's poem are not able to express their emotions, yet in Hemingway’s novel, the characters are able to. Also, the hollow men are portrayed as …show more content…
At the end of the third part of Eliot's poem, we learn that the hollow men are living in a dead and dry land, a land that is not at all ideal for the display of emotion, yet they try to imagine emotions but are incapable of grasping the whole picture. The hollow men image what it is like“ Waking alone/ At the hour when we are/ Trembling with tenderness/ Lips that would kiss/ Form prayers to broken stone.”(Eliot 45-51) First of all, it is important to note that the Hollow men imaging themselves “Waking alone” (Eliot 45) and not with someone else. Although they seem to have the capability of imagining tenderness, they are incapable of acting on it for two main reasons, first becasue they picture themselves alone and second they can’t imagine using their lips to kiss. Instead, they use their lips the only way they know how to pray and even there, they are praying to “broken stone”(Eliot 51), which could be either broken religious statutes or gravestones. On the other hand, in The Sun Also Rises, the characters are