On the chance that one is born in to a world of godless gloom, without religion and no path to salvation, a bleak and heavy hopelessness is bound to be engrained in the way of the land. T.S. Eliot paints a picture of a woeful world of despair where the “hollow men” live solely with religious reverie and of salvation in slumber. By joining literary methods of imagery, tone, and diction in his poem, “The Hollow Men,” the hopelessness is visible all over the whole poem, and is established as the poem’s theme with the utilization of the previously mentioned literary techniques. First, T.S. Eliot employs the poetic instrument of imagery in “The Hollow Men,” which performs the purpose of conjuring the sense of hopelessness to the audience to express the hopelessness of the world. The imagery presented paints a prospect of perishing and purification. In the lines through ten of the poem, T. S. Eliot declares, Our dried voices, when We whisper together Are quiet and meaningless As wind in dry grass Or rats’ feet over broken glass In our dry cellar …show more content…
Eliot. Tone enhancement is fundamental in communicating the hopelessness of the world presented in “The Hollow Men,” one of gloom and with no gods reigning down upon it. The terrain of the hollow men is depicted by Eliot as deserted and barren, “This is the dead land / This is cactus land” (39-40). T.S. Eliot is successful in creating a dark and gloomy tone by presenting the hollow men’s terrain as one that looks like death. The presence of a cactus may evoke of despair and isolation. Cacti possess sharp spines that a deterrent to touch and repels the presence of people. A cactus, in this poem, symbolizes loneliness. A tone of somber loneliness is established by Eliot marking the terrain “cactus land.” Further establishing the tone in another line of the poem, T.S. Eliot moreover points out the