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The Hollow Men, a poem (1925) by U.S.-born British writer T. S. Eliot. One of Eliot's most pessimistic works, it depicts a barren, ghostly land peopled by soulless beings. Its imagery and concern with the sterility of modern civilization link it to "The Waste Land," but in "The Hollow Men" the message, conveyed in short lines and repetitive phrases, is more direct and bereft of any hope of redemption. The oft-quoted words "This is the way the world ends/ Not with a bang but a whimper" come from this poem.
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