Void of spirit, no true purpose or goal, no emotion,stuffed men?, isolation,life is long?: these characteristics and beliefs all can be associated with the poem The Hollow Men written by T.S. Eliot (1925). The ideas of a hollow man were regularly alluded to in a canonical novella and an award-winning movie. Francis Ford Coppola used the novella Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad as the for his movieApocalypse Now?. Within both works there are conflicting arguments about whether Colonel Kurtz should be characterized as a hollow man or just a purely evil man. Charlie Marlow tries many times to relate Kurtz to the hollow man but Kurtz's actions could prove that he is a man of evil. Colonel Kurtz is not really a Hollow man; he was a man from the heart of darkness.
It is possible to see how Marlow could label Kurtz as a hollow man. The Hollow Men, written in 1st person, the poem gives a sense of commonhollowness?, common responsibility, and guilt. On Marlow's mission to kill Kurtz he often ponders his own morality. What kind of a man would he be to kill a killer, for This is an empty thought, questioning evil and morality. In these kinds of thoughts Marlow put himself in the same classification as Kurtz, lacking remorse for the taking of a life. As he learned more about Colonel Kurtz, Marlow made several comments alluding to the emptiness of Kurtz,It seemed to me that if I tried I could poke my forefinger through him, and would find nothing inside? (HOD, 321). Marlow associated Kurtz with theShadow? falling between the intention and the outcome. Marlow agrees with Elliot's poem Hollow Men, that having good intentions does not excuse anyone from being held accountable for a bad outcome. He thinks in the fashion that Kurtz does for whatever reason is unacceptable and should no longer be tolerated. Marlow does realize that he would have to take action to put an end to Kurtz's violent ways, because Kurtz would never stop by his free will.
