Allusion in The Hollow Men

In Joseph Conrad’s An Outcast of the Islands, sea captain Tom Lingard observes “Life is very long,” and he speaks with “unconscious sadness.” This is the second literary allusion to one of Conrad’s novels, the first being the allusion to Heart of Darkness in the epigraph. In the section’s structure, it continues the pattern of call and response.

The phrase alludes to the conclusion of the Lord’s Prayer, from Christian tradition, and serves as a choral response to the previous stanza.

A multifoliate rose is a rose with many leaves. The term is an allusion to Dante’s description of Paradise or Heaven in Paradiso, the last part of his Divine Comedy.

“Perpetual” means eternal or never ending. In the context of the passage, “star” alludes to the star of Bethlehem that led the way to the Christ child. The star motif again appears here; where it was fading before, it is perpetual in this instance, suggesting that though its influence has diminished, it nevertheless endures.

The passage is an allusion to Paradiso, the final part of Dante’s Divine Comedy that describes his journey into heaven; those with “direct eyes” enter heaven, “death’s other Kingdom,” and are blessed by God. It also alludes to both Canto 3 of Dante’s Inferno and ancient Greek mythology in which dying is depicted as crossing a river into another realm. The connotations of the word “direct” are significant, for the word suggests action and engagement, rather than the weakness and withdrawal that are characteristics of the “hollow men.” In the context of entering heaven, “direct eyes” also suggests a sense of spiritual vision that comes from one’s religious faith.

The phrase alludes to the historical celebration of Guy Fawkes Day (November 5) in England. After plotting unsuccessfully to assassinate King James I and blow up the Parliament, Fawkes was captured on November 5, 1605, and subsequently executed as a traitor. In celebrating the day, children would walk through the streets carrying stuffed dummies representing Fawkes and call out this refrain as they begged for pennies to buy fireworks. “Old Guy” refers to their effigies of Fawkes.

The poem begins with an epigraph that consists of a literary allusion in this line followed by an allusion to English history in the next. “Mistah Kurtz” refers to a primary character in Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness (1899): An ivory trader in the Belgium Congo, Kurtz goes into the jungle intent on improving the lives of native Africans, but cut off from civilization, he becomes a depraved demigod, morally corrupted by his charismatic power over them.