Point of View

The style of the “The Hollow Men” is characterized by instability and fragmentation, and its approach to point of view is no exception. It begins in the third person plural, lending some ambiguity to the basic question of whether the poem has multiple speakers or a single speaker who speaks for his group. The next section proceeds in the first person singular, lending credence to the idea of a single speaker who at times speaks only for himself and at times his group. But Eliot leaves this question open: the construction of the poem as an assemblage of separate sections allows for the possibility of different narrators; moreover, the singular speaker never returns. In the third section, the first person pronouns drop out altogether. Eliot constructs the sentences in this verse such that the speaker is removed; statues “receive… the supplication of a dead man...