The Hollow Men Research Paper

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Through time, many literary works have been written to expose, critique, and criticize human culture. Furthermore, the writings of Dante Alighieri, Joseph Conrad, Francis Ford Coppola, and T.S. Eliot show the true contradictions of the human person, including our cultures and how we choose to live our lives. These cultural criticisms written about by these authors are based around learning from imitation, having misplaced worship, and having no emotion or love. Moreover, these habits have been passed down through time, because children are known to learn from imitating their parents. Literary works that expose the human culture raise this question: What is going to break the endless cycle imitating our parents’ mistakes and acquiring their …show more content…

Eliot is the world-renowned author of The Hollow Men. The Hollow Men is a poem that opens with the quote, “Mistah Kurtz--he dead,” which is the quote that opens up the novel Heart of Darkness. Furthermore, this poem is loosely based on Heart of darkness. The term “Hollow Men” refers to stuffed men, or men that show no love or emotion. Similarly, the European imperialists in Heart of Darkness, the American soldiers in Apocalypse Now, and the sinners rotting in the inferno are all hollow men. This poem is an autopsy of Western Culture that shows the unity of people having a shared hatred. John Henry Newman once quoted, “From shadows and symbols, into the truth,” which can correlate with the fact that we are born into society and into our families traditions and culture, but we live life to learn the truths of everything unless we grow up with the wrong state of mind. Moreover, if we have the wrong state of mind in life we will live in an endless cycle of unhappiness, and no emotion. This is why T.S. Eliot writes, “Life is very long,” in The Hollow Men. Life truly is very long, and it is full of opportunity and experiences that we must be fully aware of or else they were a waste. If we were to be the hollow men, the world world would have no meaning and our unhappiness would blind us from

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