T. S. Eliot’s darkest poem, “The Hollow Men”(1925) dramatizes the spiritual and emotional sterility of the hollow men who are at the bottom of the abyss. In “The Hollow Men”, the hollow men or stuffed scarecrow men in the sinful or fallen “death’s dream kingdom” are called to rearrange their death-in-life but they are appalled to do any significant actions or decisions. And they don’t have any courage to take part in the final meeting in “twilight kingdom,” a kind of painful but hopeful transitional stage between “death’s dream kingdom” and “death’s other Kingdom”, because they face the truth about themselves and their past lives in this “dream crossed twilight between birth and dying.” So they shrink from crossing to the “death’s other Kingdom,” Kingdom of God where there are blessed divine vision of “eyes”, “perpetual star”, and “multifoliate rose.” In spite of the potentiality of their salvation, they are unable to attain rebirth or vision in the higher dream because of their inertia and spiritual aridity. The unhappy period in his life at the time of publishing “The Hollow Men” led Eliot to change his life and convert to Christianity in 1927. In this respect we can regard “The Hollow Men”, as a prelude or a vision of Eliot‘s New Life from nadir of despair through humility to thirst for divine love.

• 허정자(한국외국어대학교) | Jungja, Huh