Themes of Displacement and Desolation in T.

S
Elliot’s ‘The Hollow Men’ and Abdulrazak Gurnah’s
By The Sea
___________________________________________________________________________

Aashna Paul
Roll Number-104
B.A(H)English
_________________________________________________________________________
Abstract: This comparative analysis explores themes of displacement and desolation in T.S.
Eliot's ‘The Hollow Men’ and Abdulrazak Gurnah's By the Sea. It examines how these works
reflect societal fragmentation and personal trauma through literary devices, narrative
structures, and cultural contexts. The study reveals complexities of identity, belonging, and
the search for meaning in a chaotic world. ‘The Hollow Men’ portrays a spiritually empty
society, while By the Sea delves into the trauma of exile and its impact on identity. This
research illuminates shared human struggles and underscores the relevance of these themes in
contemporary literary discourse, contributing to a deeper understanding of literature's role in
shaping perceptions of displacement and existential crisis.
Key Words: Societal Fragmentation, Displacement, Desolation, Trauma

Introduction: The enduring themes of displacement and desolation echo throughout world
literature, transcending cultural boundaries and literary genres to capture the essence of
human experiences marked by dislocation and existential uncertainty. This comparative
analysis brings into dialogue T.S. Eliot's seminal modernist poem, "The Hollow Men," and
Abdulrazak Gurnah's evocative novel, By the Sea, to investigate how these works reflect and
critique the human condition amidst societal fragmentation and the burdens of personal and
collective trauma.
While ‘The Hollow Men’ presents a stark vision of spiritual emptiness and societal decay,
where individuals are severed from their moral and spiritual foundations, By the
Sea intricately explores the psychological and emotional consequences of exile, highlighting
the profound impact of displacement on identity formation and the yearning for belonging.
Through a nuanced examination of literary devices, narrative structures, and the distinct
cultural and historical contexts shaping each work, this study elucidates the multifaceted
complexities of identity, belonging, and the quest for meaning in a world often characterized
by chaos and disillusionment.
Ultimately, this paper argues that while Eliot's poem captures a sense of internal desolation
born from a spiritual void within modern society, Gurnah's novel portrays the external
displacement and desolation experienced by individuals navigating the complexities of
postcolonial exile. By comparing and contrasting these distinct yet resonant portrayals of
displacement and desolation, this research reveals the multifaceted nature of these themes and
highlights the enduring power of literature to capture the intricacies of human experience
across diverse cultural and historical landscapes. This comparative approach provides a richer
understanding of how both internal and external forces contribute to the experience of
displacement and desolation in the modern world.

T.S. Eliot’s ‘The Hollow Men’ and Abdulrazak Gurnah’s : Existential Desolation in
Modernity and Diaspora
T.S. Eliot’s ‘The Hollow Men’ (1925) and Abdulrazak Gurnah’s By the Sea (2001) converge
in their haunting exploration of existential desolation, though separated by temporal, cultural,
and geographical divides. Eliot’s poem, a seminal work of modernist literature, captures the
spiritual bankruptcy of post-WWI Europe through its spectral figures—“headpiece filled with
straw”—who embody the paralysis of a generation unmoored from tradition. Gurnah’s novel,
rooted in postcolonial displacement, traces the fractured identities of Saleh Omar and Latif
Mahmud, Zanzibari migrants navigating the liminal spaces of England. Both texts interrogate
the collapse of selfhood under modernity’s weight, where individuals oscillate between
cultural erasure and the Sisyphean struggle for self-definition. Through fragmented
narratives, intertextual echoes, and existential questioning, they reveal how modernity—
whether through war, colonialism, or migration—reduces humanity to hollowed-out specters,
“shape without form, shade without colour,” perpetually searching for substance in a world of
shadows.

Modern Man’s Spiritual Bankruptcy and Postcolonial Displacement

Eliot’s hollow men inhabit a “cactus land” of spiritual desolation, their existence defined by
paradox: “paralysed force, gesture without motion.” As critic Northrop Frye argues, this
paralysis reflects modernity’s rupture with religious and cultural traditions, leaving
individuals stranded in a mechanistic universe devoid of transcendence. The poem’s refrain
—“Between the idea / And the reality / Between the motion / And the act / Falls the
Shadow”—encapsulates the chasm between intention and action, a theme mirrored in
Gurnah’s depiction of diasporic liminality. Saleh Omar and Latif Mahmud, displaced by
Zanzibar’s 1964 revolution, become “gatherings of exiles” in England, their identities
fractured by migration. Latif’s description of memories as “debris” resonates with Eliot’s
“dried voices” whispering in “dry cellars,” underscoring the futility of reconstructing
selfhood in a world where, as Sartre posits, existence precedes essence. Gurnah extends
Eliot’s critique of modernity into postcolonial terrain, where displacement is not merely
spiritual but geopolitical—a consequence of colonial violence and economic exploitation.
Omar’s stoic resignation (“I am nothing now, a gatherer of trifles”) mirrors the hollow men’s
spectral existence, both reduced to “broken stone” idols in a godless age.
Existential Crisis and the Burden of Freedom
The existential crisis of Eliot’s hollow men stems from their inability to reconcile action with
meaning in a disenchanted world. As scholar Jewel Spears Brooker notes, their “eyes I dare
not meet in dreams” symbolize the terror of confronting existential freedom—a theme Sartre
crystallizes in Being and Nothingness: “Man is condemned to be free… because once thrown
into the world, he is responsible for everything he does.” This condemnation haunts Gurnah’s
characters, whose displacement forces them to confront the absurdity of self-creation. Latif’s
anguished recollection of his father’s death (“He died of being who he was”) and Omar’s
performative stoicism reflect what Sartre terms “bad faith”—the refusal to embrace one’s
radical freedom. Their interactions, fraught with mutual suspicion and reluctant empathy,
become a microcosm of existential confrontation. When Latif accuses Omar of being an
“assassin of their lives,” he mirrors the hollow men’s fragmented voices, “quiet and
meaningless,” as both characters grapple with the guilt of survival and the impossibility of
authentic communication. Eliot’s “deliberate disguises” find parallel in Omar’s antiquarian
trade, where carved doors from Zanzibar become metaphors for the masks worn to navigate
hostile hostlands.

Diaspora as Liminal Space and Fragmented Identity

Gurnah’s treatment of diaspora complicates Eliot’s existential themes by introducing the
postcolonial subject’s “double consciousness,” a term scholar Homi Bhabha applies to those
straddling conflicting cultural worlds. Omar’s migration renders him a spectral figure in
England, “a whisper heard in another room,” while Latif’s academic success masks an inner
void—“the uncanny fluency of another’s language” that cannot bridge cultural chasms. This
linguistic estrangement echoes the hollow men’s failed prayers to “broken stone,” as both
texts frame modernity as a landscape where language itself becomes a site of alienation. For
Omar, memory becomes a palimpsest; his recollection of Zanzibar’s aromatic woods
(“cloves, cardamom, the tang of salt air”) contrasts with the antiseptic smells of his English
asylum, a dichotomy reflecting what critic Edward Said terms “the tension between the
spatial fact of separation and the compensatory creation of a new imaginative geography.”
Yet this geography remains fractured, much like Eliot’s “broken jaw of our lost kingdoms,”
where coherence is perpetually deferred.

Sartrean Existentialism and the Illusion of Self

Sartre’s assertion that “man is nothing else but what he makes of himself” illuminates both
texts’ preoccupation with self-creation amidst absurdity. The hollow men’s disintegration into
“fading stars” mirrors Latif’s realization that identity is a performance—“a face to meet the
faces that you meet.” Their struggles reflect what philosopher Simone de Beauvoir calls the
“ambiguity” of existence: the simultaneous burden and liberation of defining oneself without
external validation. Omar’s narrative, structured as a confession to an indifferent immigration
officer, embodies this ambiguity. His stoicism (“I have learned to wait”) is both a survival
tactic and a form of bad faith, a refusal to confront the void left by displacement. Similarly,
Eliot’s hollow men cling to “children’s rhymes” and “straw crosses” as hollow substitutes for
meaning, their fragmented prayers (“For Thine is the Kingdom”) underscoring the collapse of
transcendental signifiers. Gurnah, however, injects a tentative resilience absent in Eliot’s
nihilism. Omar’s antiquarian shop, filled with relics of Zanzibar, becomes a site of diasporic
reinvention—a “multifoliate rose” reassembled from fragments, however fragile.

The Search for Self in a Hollow World

Both works conclude with unresolved searches for identity, reflecting modernity’s refusal to
offer redemption. Eliot’s hollow men dissolve into “fading stars” and nursery rhymes, their
world ending “not with a bang but a whimper.” Gurnah’s characters, however, persist in the
“half-light” of diaspora, where identity is perpetually reconstituted through memory and
migration. Latif’s admission that “every truth is a lie waiting to be uncovered” mirrors the
hollow men’s epistemological uncertainty, yet his willingness to engage with Omar’s
contested past suggests a fragile hope. This duality reflects critic Paul Gilroy’s concept of the
“Black Atlantic,” where diasporic identity emerges through fluid, transnational exchanges
rather than fixed roots. Omar’s carved doors, symbols of thresholds between worlds,
encapsulate this tension—artifacts of loss that nonetheless gesture toward reconciliation.

Conclusion: Modernity’s Paradox

Eliot and Gurnah ultimately expose modernity’s central paradox: the conditions that hollow
humanity also compel the relentless, if thwarted, quest for substance. Eliot’s “cactus land”
and Gurnah’s “cold country” serve as metaphors for existential desolation, yet their
protagonists respond differently to this void. The hollow men succumb to spiritual inertia,
their voices dissolving into silence, while Omar and Latif navigate the desert of displacement
with pragmatism and tenuous hope. In doing so, Gurnah revises Eliot’s modernist nihilism,
suggesting that diasporic identity—though fractured—contains the seeds of reinvention. Both
works, however, agree on modernity’s corrosive power: it reduces individuals to “stuffed
men,” yet in that very reduction lies the imperative to forge meaning from fragments. As
Latif muses, “We carry our lives like secrets,” a sentiment echoing Eliot’s “eyes I dare not
meet in dreams”—a recognition that the search for self, however futile, remains an indelible
part of the human condition.
Citations:
 Northrop Frye: “Anatomy of Criticism”
 Jean-Paul Sartre: Being and Nothingness (Existentialism)
 Jewel Spears Brooker: The Complete Prose of T.S. Eliot
 Homi Bhabha: Double Consciousness Theory
 Edward Said: Orientalism
 Simone de Beauvoir: "The Ethics of Ambiguity" (Pour une morale de l'ambiguïté,
1947).
 Paul Gilroy: "The Black Atlantic"