How Society Compensates for Spirituality Lana Lowe College

Within T.S. Eliot’s “The Hollow Men” the influences of society and how it can affect the general personality of the public is reflected in Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby and Countee Cullen’s “Yet Do I Marvel”. Eliot uses the contradiction of hollow and stuffed men to set up how men have been affected by their societies, the contrast making them devoid of emotion and numb. Their insubstantial filling being the logic and principles that society has provided. Societal influences have taken the place of spiritual transcendence resulting in a lack of understanding of the nature of God and a movement towards the material world. Fitzgerald expands on this by having his characters reflect traits from Eliot’s poem while Cullen’s poem makes a statement about his society by talking about the spiritual presence of God and using it to explain what seems to be his overall view of his fellow man. The overall statement that is made of society in “The Hollow Men” seems to be that it cannot take the place of God and this can be found in both Fitzgerald’s and Cullen’s pieces.

Eliot uses a children’s song to reflect the cyclical nature of society and the world. By saying “Here we go round the prickly pear” it is implied that events will inevitably...