How we cite our quotes: (line)
Quote #1
Mistah Kurtz—he dead.
A penny for the Old Guy(epigraphs)
The epigraphs identify the Hollow Men with the character Kurtz from Heart of Darkness, and the English traitor Guy Fawkes; it suggests that they are dead souls.
Quote #2
We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men (lines 1-2)
The first two lines make the Hollow Men sound like one of those scary-looking animals that hunters sometimes hang on their walls. They have the outward appearance of being human, but inside they are just lifeless matter.
Quote #3
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats' feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar
Shape without form, shade without colour,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion; (lines 5-12)
The Hollow Men have an incomplete identity. Their "voices," "shape," and ability to "gesture" resemble qualities of human beings, but they have no meaning here. They are like shadows without the real object that creates the shadow.
Quote #4
Let me also wear
Such deliberate disguises
Rat's coat, crowskin, crossed staves (lines 31-33)
Do you believe the claim that the scarecrow costume is a disguise, or are the Hollow Men trying to justify their lifeless form? They try to cover up their hollowness from the "eyes" of "death's other kingdom."
Quote #5
Sightless, unless
The eyes reappear
As the perpetual star
Multifoliate rose
Of death's twilight kingdom
The hope only
Of empty men. (lines 61-67)
Would you have expected the Hollow Men to be blind? How can they dance around all those cacti if they are blind? Or does Eliot mean "blind" in a metaphorical sense?