Faith and Faithlessness

On its surface, “The Hollow Men” is not a religious poem. Throughout, however, the speaker makes a series of subtle religious references and allusions. These references suggest that the “hollow men” have lost their connection to God. The speaker thus suggests that they might be restored — become fully human again — if they could regain their faith. At the same time, he also suggests that such renewed faith is impossible for the “hollow men.”

The speaker of “The Hollow Men” regularly suggests that he and his companions have lost contact with God. For instance, in lines 41–43, the speaker describes the “hollow men” praying to “stone images.” This alludes to passages in the Bible where the Israelites stop worshipping God and instead start following false gods, which are often represented by “graven images.” When that happens in the Bible, God punishes the Israelites for failing to worship him properly. The allusion suggests that the “hollow men” are like the backsliding Israelites: they too have strayed from their religious commitments and fallen into idolatry.

Similarly, the speaker describes the “hollow men” as blind, “sightless” in line 61. Their only hope for regaining their sight is a “multifoliate rose.” The “rose” is a traditional symbol of the Virgin Mary in Catholicism. The speaker thus suggests that the “hollow men” need the Virgin Mary’s help to regain their sight.

These religious references reach their peak in the fifth section of the poem. In this section the poem quotes directly from the Book of Matthew: “Thine is the kingdom.” This is an allusion to a longer passage in which Christ says, “Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever, Amen.” Here Christ means that God is ruler of the Universe and always will be. However, the speaker doesn’t quote this passage from the Bible: instead it appears indented, in italics. This indicates that it is in a different voice: in other words, it’s not the “hollow men” speaking but someone else, who enters the poem briefly.

The other voice is connected with God: whoever the voice is, he or she knows the Bible and is capable of quoting from it. The speaker, by contrast, can’t do that — when he tries, he ends up butchering the passage. “Thine is,” he says and then trails off; “Thine is the.” Something is blocking the speaker. This, in turn, seems to be the “shadow” that the speaker describes repeatedly in section five. The shadow is symbolic of anxiety, fear, and death. The “shadow” is powerful: it intervenes in some of the basic forces necessary for the universe to work (forces like desire and emotion) and prevents them from functioning properly. The shadow separates the “the idea” from “the reality,” “the motion” from “the act,” “the conception” from “the creation.” Essentially, it is severing cause from effect, or action from meaning.

To the speaker, the “shadow” seems unbeatable: he ends the poem imagining the world ending, simply puttering out: “not with a bang but a whimper.” As the shadow cuts off cause from effect, the world slowly runs down, unable to sustain itself. However, the allusion to the Bible earlier in the poem reminds the reader that — from a religious point of view — God should or at least could set it all right. The resources are there to restore the “hollow men” — and the culture they represent — to a full, healthy relationship with God. That they cannot regain this relationship suggests that such intimacy with God is permanently lost, at least in the world of this poem. Though the speaker longs nostalgically for a lost religious faith, he has given up trying to get it back.