Relationship between Heart Of Darkness, The Hollow Men, and Apocalypse Now
The Hollow Men is a poem by T.S. Eliot who won the Nobel Prize in 1948 for all his great accomplishments. The Hollow Men is about the hollowness that all people have; while Heart of Darkness is a story of the darkness that all people have. The poem written by Eliot was greatly influenced by Conrad and Dante. Some people may even think that WWI also influenced it. It was written after World War I and could be describing how people's beliefs had been eroded. I think that a lot of the poem is written about Heart Of Darkness, and Dante's Inferno is used as imagery for the poem. In this essay I will show how the poem The Hollow Men is talking about the same thing as the Heart Of Darkness, how lines from the Hollow Men are describing scenes from Heart Of Darkness, and why Brando quoted the poem in the movie Apocalypse Now.
The poem The Hallow Men is talking obviously talking about hollowness in men. In the book Heart Of Darkness there hollow men. B.C. Southam says that: "Conrad's story is full of hollow men-empty of faith, of personality, of moral strength, of humanity"(A Student's Guide to the Selected Poems of T.S. Eliot 151). This is especially observed in Kurtz. He can be described as 'hollow at the core' and the whole story revolves around this hollowness. In Eliot's poem when he is talking about hollow men he is talking a...
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...he same feeling of the hollow man. They both know that every man has a darkness. Eliot went so far as to use actual scenes from the book and incorporate them into his poem. The movie Apocalypse Now uses the Poem to show the Darkness that Eliot has described so well. The book, the poem, and the movie are all great in their own way. There seems to be something great about darkness.
Works Cited
Southam, B.C. A Student's Guide to The Selected Poem of T.S. Eliot. 1963: Boston, Faber and Faber Limited. 1990
Hargrove, Nancy. Landscape as Symbol in the Poetry of T.S. Eliot. Mississippi UP, 1978.
Conrad, Joseph. Heart Of Darkness. 1899. Norton & Company (1988): New York: Norton, 1988
Messinger, Lisa Mintz, Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Georgia O'Keeffe. Georgia O'Keeffe. New York: Thames and Hudson Inc.; Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2001. Print.
The first two lines of the poem set the mood of fear and gloom which is constant throughout the remainder of the poem. The word choice of "black" to describe the speaker's face can convey several messages (502). The most obvious meaning ...
This book goes through Georgia’s life in detail. I found a lot of personal quotes in this book that Georgia said about her work and the criticism it received that really caught my eye. She was very opinionated about her art, but at the same time, she could care less about what any art critic had to say about it. Art critics at the time of her career’s peak were predominantly male and this book expresses the fact that male chauvinism was a huge impact on the criticism of her work. This book also goes into the impression her constant change in her surroundings had on her work. Georgia her constant change in her surroundings had on her work. Georgia lived in several different parts of America, Wisconsin, New Mexico, Arizona, California, New York, etc. and with each move, her style change and reflected this new place.
In the early 1930s, vast dust storms and droughts in the Midwest region of the United States left homes destroyed and farmlands unfertile. This time period was known as the “Dust Bowl”, which lasted about ten years. This greatly impacted the lives of many who lived in this region, particularly the southwest, who were hit the worst with the storms (Nelson, "About the Dust Bowl."). Those who made a living off of their farmland could no longer support their families due to the lack of income because of the drought. This led to a great migration of families westward toward California in order to find jobs, food, and shelter. The immense hardships faced during this migration caused many families and individuals to work for very little money, reside in unsanitary camps, and face extreme conditions. Those who were unfortunate enough to not find work ended up homeless, jobless, and would ultimately die of starvation. An excellent example of this occurs in John Steinbeck’s international bestseller The Grapes of Wrath, where the Joad family is forced to migrate westward and must face adversity head on after being hit with an enormous dust storm and losing their valuable farmland. In order to illustrate how Steinbeck’s novel represents themes of family commitment and losses of sanity within society during this era, many analysts and literary critics have used characterization, conflict, and the theory of new historicism within the novel to break down these particular themes.
In the year of 1939, the Great Depression affected the lives of many located within the United States. This was a severe, and most widespread depression which affected people across the world. For the reason that there was a fall of the stock market, a drought ravaged the agricultural heartland. Those who were dependent on their farmland to provide for their families became imposed by coercion to retreat and re-locate their entire families. This migration was a struggle during this period because the lack of resources and money to survive. Among other elements, starvation and homelessness caused many to die at an early age. John Steinbeck's, The Grapes of Wrath, exhibits the Joad's, a family who undergoes the collapse of the agrarian lifestyle, while forced to move their entire family to possibly a more advantageous situation. This presumed liberating destination California, is supposed to provide a positive outlook on the future of the Joad family. Similar to other families, the Joad's migrated towards an aspiration of a better life. Although there was a collaboration of feelings regarding this immense transition, a sense of struggle and hesitancy was prevalent as well. Within this complex struggle, there were different components created known as macro factors, which arose and ultimately affected the many families directly related to the situation.
As you approach your home, you realize the empty barn and the crooked house sagging close to the barren ground. A closer view unveils an empty, dried up well, an emaciated cat limping past the caved in porch, a tree with "leaves tattered and scraggly as a molting chicken" (23), a stack of rotting untouched lumber and cracked, jagged window panes reflecting the desolate land abroad. This description portrays the Joad family's home suffering from abandonment when they leave their country home life for better opportunities in the west. Steinbeck portrays the plight of the migrant Joad family from Oklahoma to California in search of a better life during the Great Depression in The Grapes of Wrath.
“Everybody wants a little piece of lan'. I read plenty of books out here. Nobody never gets to heaven, and nobody gets no land. It's just in their head. They're all the time talkin' about it, but its jus' in their head.” (Steinbeck) The Grapes of Wrath is most often categorized as an American Realist novel. It was written by John Steinbeck and published in 1939. As a result of this novel, Steinbeck won the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, and prominently cited the novel when he won the Nobel Prize a little over twenty years after the text’s publication. This text follows the Joad family through the Great Depression. It begins in Oklahoma, watching as the family is driven from their home by drought and economic changes. Within the introduction of the novel the living conditions is described, “Every moving thing lifted the dust into the air: The walking man lifted a thin layer as high as his waist, and a wagon lifted the dust as high as the fence tops and an automobile boiled a cloud behind it.” (Grapes, 1) This novel is and will remain one of the most significant novels of the Great Depression. Despite its controversial nature it is timeless. In fact, the ending of this text is one of the most controversial pieces of literature written during the time period, and has never accurately made its way into film. The ending to John Steinbeck’s novel The Grapes of Wrath is the most significant portion of the novel due to its historical accuracy as well as its message about the American spirit.
An elegance in word choice that evokes a vivid image. It would take a quite a bit of this essay to completely analyze this essay, so to break it down very briefly. It portrays a positive image of blackness as opposed to darkness and the color black normally being connected with evil, sorrow, and negativity. The poem as a whole connects blackness with positivity through its use of intricate, beautiful words and images.
Many literary critics have observed and noted the use of single effect in Edgar Allan Poe’s works. In “The Raven,” Poe chooses single effect as a dominant attribute to the poem as a whole. Edgar Allan Poe is widely recognized for his use of darkness in many of his works. In “The Raven,” the darkness in the poem encourages the namelessness of Lenore and the despair of the speaker. The darkness the speaker sees beyond his door is actually Lenore. However, his beloved is still absent. The darkness the speaker sees is not only Lenore but it is also the dreaded raven. A shadow, which haunts his soul, is hidden in the darkness beyond his door. In the fifth stanza, it is no more a darkness but the word “Lenore” being echoed. In the sixth stanza, the haunting echo transforms into the wind and “nothing more!” In stanza 7, all the forms become a raven that speaks “Nevermore.” Poe also uses darkness in an effort to achieve clarity. The effort to differe...
So, 'The Hollow Man'; has many parallels that make it a perfect epigraph for The Great Gatsby. The three key aspects of the poem that relate it to The Great Gatsby were the hollow men, the stuffed men, and the paralyzed force. All three depict the society Gatsby lived in and the life he had to go through. The hollow and stuffed men showed the two types of people in Gatsby's society. The hollow men contain no inner spirit or love toward one another. However, the stuffed men consisted of bravery, self-control, and love. They were Tom, Daisy, Jay, and George, respectively. The poem categorizes where people fit in society. The final parallel is the paralyzed force including Owl Eyes and the billboard. Both had a frozen outlook on life and someone to look up to. In conclusion, Fitzgerald and Eliot created classics that will be analyzed for many years to come. However, no one will be able to make an epigraph for The Great Gatsby better than Eliot's 'The Hollow Man.';
T. S. Eliot’s “The Hollow Men” is a dramatic monologue, free verse poem that consists of five parts that could be considered five separate poems. His use of “allegorically abstract text nevertheless achieves a remarkable unity of effect in terms of voice, mood and imagery” (Morace 948). Before the poem starts, there are two epigraphs; “Mistah Kurtz – he dead. / A penny for the Old Guy” (lines 1-2). Eliot alludes to these two epigraphs because their themes are developed throughout his poem. “The first epigraph is from Joseph Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness,” a story …that examines the hollowness and horror of lack of faith, spiritual paralysis, and despair” (Bloom 61), just like the “hollow men” in his poem. The second epigraph “refers to the celebration of Guy Fawkes Day in Britain” (Bloom 61). This is a day that celebrates Fawkes’ unsuccessful rebellion against King James I with his capture in the cellar of the Parliament building, where stored gun powder was supposed to blow up and kill King James I and his family. Once captured, he cowardly turned over his co-conspirators and they all were killed. It is “celebrated with bonfires, fireworks, the burning of scarecrows,
Eliot's Themes of Death and Futility in the Poem Remind Your Self of The Hollow Men
of millions of people did not happen I know that it did, and I know
The narrator seems sad throughout the Poem (Poe, “Raven”). He is always giving the reader the gloomy feeling as if it is dark and vacant (Colwell). The narrator has beautiful Poetry and many of his Poems make people who read it feel sadness or pity (Eddings). It was December and all the dead wood cast its shadow on the floor (Poe, “Raven”). The narrator kept wishing for tomorrow (Poe, “Raven”).
Edgar Allan Poe once said, “The boundaries which divide Life from Death are at best shadowy and vague. Who shall say where the one ends, and where the other begins?” In the story of The Fall of the House of Usher, the author, Edgar Allan Poe portrays his audience with a sense of darkness and death through the literary techniques he implies.