Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness reveals the theme of self-reflection, nonetheless that reflection results in a caliginous end stuffed with vacantness. A poem written in 1925, “The Hollow Males” by T.S. Eliot, portrays a virtually equal feeling of vacancy. Each of which type a vacuous, hole existence of man. Conrad and Eliot’s work mirrors one another’s immediately with their inside reflection and total vacancy. Actually, Eliot even begins his poem with “Mistah Kurtz- He useless.” a quotation from Heart of Darkness.
Poems usually intend to specific greater than what they actually say inside their strains. In T.S. Eliot’s “Hollow Males,” Eliot depicts the insignificant lives of these “hole males,” “stuffed” with worthlessness.
He then goes on to elucidate how the boys go about their day by day lives and “whisper collectively” meaningless issues. Eliot additionally speaks of the eyes which can be “extra distant and extra solemn than a fading star.” The hole males’s eyes are in a kind of hellish state, with stares of nothingness as they gaze out among the many world.
God’s eyes appear out of attain to those hopeless males, God’s eyes “don’t seem,” they’re too distant for them to succeed in. “This useless land this cactus land right here the stone photographs are raised,” males on this barren and empty land are seen worshipping false gods, nugatory stone. The one approach for the hole males to search out hope is for God to be introduced pack in and praised in “dying’s twilight kingdom,” which in itself appears hopeless.
Nearly spontaneously Eliot brings in a nursery rhyme, making a whimsical and simplistic approach concerning the hole males. Shortly after he begins the Lord’s Prayer, “For thine is the Kingdom,” and repeats it a number of occasions seeming to unfastened his practice of thought, including to the meaningless stuffing of these hole males. “That is the way in which the world ends not with a bang however a whimper,” ends Eliot’s poem and additionally the lives of the hole males, with out which means or significance. Just like the theme of hollowness all through “The Hollow Males,” “Heart of Darkness” generates the same theme of self-reflection and the eventual feeling of vacancy. The protagonist, Marlow, sees that England is stuffed with superfluous actions and materials issues.
“The internal fact is hidden.” The character of Marlow consists of a wandering sailor with little data of who he actually is. When touring all through the world, Marlow’s eyes open as he realizes the darkness of the world. Marlow leaves behind Eliot’s “deliberate disguises” and journeys to the void land of Africa. Quickly He quickly ascertains that Africa is similar to England, in that it’s centered across the nugatory supplies and cash, “the phrase ‘ivory’ rang within the air… you’ll assume they have been praying to it.” Marlow’s primary purpose of going into this unusual land was to test on the internal station and unintentionally on Kurtz.
By means of all of the issues Marlow witnesses on his voyage, he discovers the true vacancy and hollowness inside himself. The jungles of Africa assume the identical roles because the deserts of “The Hollow Males,” the world is barren and forsaken reflecting the thoughts of Marlow. Within the “internal station” Marlow meets a personality who appears to be “stuffed” like the boys of Eliot’s poem, “I may poke my forefinger by him, and would discover nothing however a little bit unfastened grime.” When Kurtz is lastly launched in Heart of Darkness he’s repeatedly labeled as a “common genius,” and this so-called genius is from his personal internal reflections.
One thing “had whispered to him issues about himself which he didn’t know, issues of which he had no conceptions until he took counsel with this nice solitude – and the whisper had proved irresistibly fascinating. It echoed loudly inside him as a result of he was hole on the core.” The whispers in “The Hollow Males” are additionally discovered all through Heart of Darkness. Kurtz is aware of deep inside that he’s empty and makes an attempt to fill the void with these whispers.
His regret for these actions are revealed by his final phrases, “The horror! The horror!” His genius was finally seen for what it really was; he knew was he had, a “hole” existence. The poem and novella each symbolize the masked, hole, and meaningless existence of males, by a way of reflection of oneself. Heart of Darkness is a story of looking out of meaningless ends and “The Hollow Males” reveals the tragedy of the hollowness in males, each present that these materials obsessions of the world are price nothing within the total outlook of life.
