The Hollow Men Exile Quotes Page 2
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| Quote #4 The eyes are not here |
The landscape is a no-man's-land of broken things, dying stars, and death. Like the Hollow Men, the setting is also characterized by absence: the lack of "eyes."
| Quote #5 Here we go round the prickly pear |
The circular motion of dancing around a spiny cactus symbolizes the lack of direction in the existence of the Hollow Men. The souls of Heaven, by contrast, moved in a straight line toward God's justice. In this revision of a children's song, Eliot substitutes a dry, bare plant ("the prickly pear") for a lush, green plant (the mulberry bush).
