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Sterility of Modern Man in T.S.Eliot's "The Hollow Men"

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Sterility of Modern Man in T.S.Eliot's Rebecacca Bhattacharya International Journal of Engineering Research and Application www.ijera.com ISSN: 2248-9622 Vol. 5, Issue 09 (Series -3) Sep. 2015, pp 151-160 RESEARCH ARTICLE OPEN ACCESS Sterility of Modern Man in T.S.Eliot's "The Hollow Men" Rebecacca Bhattacharya1, Sanghamitra Acharya2, D.P.Maharana3 1,2Gandhi Institute for Technology,BBSR,Odisha. 3Gandhi Engineering College,BBSR,Odisha. ABSTRACT Alienation, uncertainty, and complexity of the modern age drive its writers to do something in one way or another .T.S. Eliot (1888–1965), one of the most influential modernist poets of his time, dedicates major of his poetry to expose the modern individual's inability that he sees in himself and in his society. According to some critics, "The Hollow Men" (1925), is one of Eliot's most difficult poems. It is a dramatisation of a state of spiritual and emotional sterility, in which Eliot tragically presents a group of men aware of the shallowness of the society which theyconform. In all his poems, Eliot made an attempt to This study is an attempt to convey Eliot's mood and theme through "The Hollow Men" to express the bitterness of modern and discuss specifically the state of spiritual and materialistic life. The spiritual degeneration of man emotional sterility. Accordingly, the study starts can be seen in his poems. Eliot is a true writer of with an introduction which sheds light on the poet's his age. The fact is that he was a spokesman of his thought and the poem, and revolves around the age. Eliot‘s view on the Modern Man as depicted in insignificance of the individual in the modern age. "The Waste Land" which is, according to F.R. Then, it traces Eliot's themes of emptiness, Leaves, ―great and positive achievement‖ is the hollowness, and spiritual and emotional sterility. best depiction of modern human‘s life. Modern Finally, the study summarizes the reasons of people‘s problems especially after the World War, spiritual and emotional sterility, and its results on have become extremely intricate. As the natural the modern individuals. The study ends with notes world has become barren outwardly because of andbibliography. massive death and destruction, the internal state of Thomas Stearns Eliot ( 26 Sept. 1888 - 4 humans has become complex as well as perverted. Jan. 1965 ), poet, critic, and editor, was born in St. They are going through a life-in-death situation, Louis, Missouri. He is considered one of the well always in fear of death. Moral values have lost acknowledged representative figures of the dignity. Perverted sex has become a part and parcel twentieth century whose literary talent speaks of in their daily lives. In fact, innocence is considered itself so boldly and vividly through his remarkable as perversion. Every modern human is hopeless. and distinguished poetry. His literary career Faith in God is overshadowed by the power of extended over a period of forty-five years. He money and personal enjoyment.3―The Hollow dominated the English literary scene with a wide Men‖ also is a shorter but still a nice portrayal of poetic authority and modern people. Modern men suffer from spiritual influence.Hetriedhishandatpoetry,atdrama,atcriticis paralysis, spiritual decay: ―Shape without m,bothliteraryand social, and at journalism. He form…./Paralysed force" . Man suffers an achieved eminent success in each of these fields. impoverishment of emotional vitality. He lives His greatness is a recognized fact which no longer according to the rules of the empty social requires any assertion. F.R. Leaves remarks: conventions and those of a decadent culture. Man‘s ―Eliot‘s genius is that of the great poet life is partly sordid and sensual. He feels himself who has a profound and acute apprehension of the entangled in a corrupt, decaying, ugly Society. The difficulties of his age‖.1 duplicity of man, lack of communication among Eliot is quite different from any other men, and man‘s isolation are three basic modern English poet and is held as the most predicaments of man, making him more and more influential literary person of 20th century not only alienated, although, these motifs are common to for his uniqueness in his style and subject matter of Eliot‘spoetry.4 his poetry but it is the use of philosophy which is T. S. Eliot was one of the most important the most stunning feature in his poems. Eliot‘s poets of the twentieth century; as literary critic and poetry has always portrayed the crude, harsh war- commentator on culture and society. His writing torn world, where humanity has reached the zenith continues to be profoundly influential. Every of its sterility.2 student of English must engage with his writing to www.ijera.com 151 | P a g e Rebecacca Bhattacharya International Journal of Engineering Research and Application www.ijera.com ISSN: 2248-9622 Vol. 5, Issue 09 (Series -3) Sep. 2015, pp 151-160 understand the course of modern literature. John November, 1605. The plot was unearthed, Xiros Cooper explains how Eliot was influenced by and the conspirators hanged. It is customary in the intellectual climate of both twentieth- century England to make effigy of Guy Fawkes and Britain and America, and how he became a major burn it in every 5 cultural figure onboth sides of the Atlantic. The Nov., and the children beg pennies for this continuing controversies surrounding his writing purpose. The two epigraphs run throughout the and his thought are still addressed. He was awarded poem hinting at the hollowness of the men in the Nobel Prize in literature in 1948 for his present day world. Men in this world are either outstanding pioneer contribution to present day hollow like Mistah Kurts, or they are stuffed poetry.5 effigies like Guy Fawkes. So, they are embodying Eliot died of emphysema in London on the real sterility, and the poem is bitter satire January 4, 1965, and according to his own againstthem.9 instructions, his ashes were interred in the church In Eliot's philosophy it is better to do evil of St. Michael's in East Coker. A commemorative than to do nothing at all, it is better to be dead than plaque on the church wall bears his chosen epitaph- to be deadened like the hollow men in the poem. -lines chosen from "Four Quartets": "In my The poem is anti_ romantic in its tone which subtly beginning is my end. In my end is mybeginning".6 hints at the truth_ 'not to expect from human beings "The Hollow Men" is one of Eliot's most more than they can give' . The world in "The difficult poems. It is a dramatisaton of a state of Hollow Men" is a gray world, featureless and spiritual and emotional sterility. The poem is nameless. The hollow men are living in death or pervaded by feelings of guilt, remorse and anguish, they are dead in their lives. They are stuffed men, and by intensely personal experience which could scare crows, and straw effigies. The land in which not properly be articulated or resolved. "The they live is cactus land where fertility is out of the Hollow Men" is not unified poem, it is a sequence question. The men are mere stony images, of many fragments. It is the reader who must trace frustrated by shadow of fear lingering on the various meanings with the help of the references 'Beach' of the 'Tumid River'. The poem is loaded symbols and images the poet refers to.7The poem with a series of images that go on telling us the was first published in its present form in 1925. It purposeless of the empty men live in the forsaken consists of five sections which contain the poet's land. The poem alludes to the new generation of meditations; "on the subject of human nature in this Europe in general and more particularly of London. world" and on the relationship of this world to Nonetheless, it stands as a discourse addressing the another, the world of death, or eternity". Its hollowness of the 20th century generation language and imagery are disarmingly simple, but throughout the world.10 richness and complexity result from its web The text of "The Hollow Men" by T.S. allusions and references. The title of the poem is Eliot (1925), has been taken from The Complete drawn from three different works : The first is a Poems and Plays of T S Eliot (1975) : poem titled "The Hollow Land" by William Morries, and the second is Rudyard Kipling's "The Mistah Kurtz -- he dead. A penny for the Broken Men" . Critics also mentioned Brutus's Old Guy speech in Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar".8 We are the hollow men We are the stuffed Eliot has provided two Epigraphs to the men Leaning together Headpiece filled with straw. poem, and these epigraphs indicate its basic theme. Alas! Our dried voices, when We whispertogether The first epigraph, 'Mistah Kurts_ he dead' comes Are quiet and meaningless As wind in drygrass Or from Conrad's novel "The Heart of Darkness" . rats' feet over broken glass In our dry cellar Shape Mistah Kurts has met death knowingly, with direct without form, shade without colour, eyes; he is one of the 'lost violent souls' referred to Paralysed force, gesture without motion; in line sixteen of the first section of the poem, and Those who have crossed With direct eyes, to in this respect he is different from the hollow men death's other Kingdom Remember us -- if at all -- are incapable of action and decision. The second not as lost Violent souls, but only As the hollow epigraph, "A men The stuffedmen.
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