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Summary Of The Poem 'The Hollow Men'

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The fear of being judged can leave a person feeling trapped in their day-to-day life. It could leave them feeling afraid to admit who they are, where they’ve been, and where it could take them in the end. “The Hollow Men” is a poem about the men stuck in a purgatory in between heaven and hell. These men are seen by others that pass through on their way to there eternity. The men do not follow them because they are afraid of their judgment, they are afraid of where they might go. So they stay in purgatory, alone. The story told by this poem, by the hollow men, show how these men are feeling trapped and are stuck because they fear their judgement day. This fear is leaving them trapped in their purgatory. The men stuck in this purgatory are there because they believe when they go to their judgement, they will be sent somewhere they do not want to go. They do not want to risk leaving purgatory and going some place they do not want to be. In the second section of the poem, the hollow man describes a set of eyes that shine down like a light in the dark onto him. He can hear the wind singing and he can see the trees swinging in the light above him. He refuses to look into the light, he …show more content…

They choose to hide from their judgement and stay in the darkness between heaven and hell. They disguise themselves from the eyes shining down on them, waiting for them to show themselves. The men feel scared of the answer they might be given when they go to judgement and find where they will spend eternity. The hollow men that Eliot writes about are hollow because they might have not done much in their life to be fit for heaven or hell. They are stuck in this purgatory because they are not enough for either fate. The hollow men fear heaven, and they fear hell. They are afraid to be told that they are not enough, and so they hide and they will continue to hide, maybe for all eternity all because they fear their

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Hawthorne depicts a community that hides its sins and ostracizes those who display them. On Parson Hooper’s deathbed he finally resolves the mystery of the black veil. He states, “I look around me, and lo! On every visage a black veil!” (Hawthorne 9) He explains that it is not he who is hiding his sins with a “black veil” but rather everyone else hiding from the fact that they have sins.

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“This is the journal of a priest who died in Purgatory in the late 1880’s, probably of some now-curable disease, but the journal he kept is all about spirituality, and not like, believing in a higher power. He talks about the spiritual history of Purgatory- being one of what he calls, ‘an old gate to Hell,’ leftover from when God cast out the devil. Father Virgil talks about how this makes Purgatory, and the Ghost River Triangle, susceptible to the musings of the devil, blah blah, I think he means demons, or at least like. Bad vibes.” Shrugging, Waverly took a breath before continuing, “But later on, he talks about having dreams- like, visions, I think- of the Key, who follows the Lead to the Gate, where… well, I’m not sure where the Gate is, or why the Key follows the Lead there, but… I think depending on what happens at the where…”

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These words ring true over and over again as the narrator talks with MacDonald and observes the ten interviews between a Ghost and a Solid Being. In Chapter 2, the narrator converses with the Intelligent Man. This man tells the narrator that people have no “Needs” in Hell because they can obtain anything they want by simply imagining their desires (Lewis 473). Hell, according to the people on the bus, is a listless abyss where everyone’s wishes are granted; the narrator sees throughout the interviews how each Ghost would be satisfied with Hell if they refused to give up their selfish

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