The Hollow Men
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NOTES
Mistah Kurtz: a character in Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness." A...Old Guy: a cry of English children on the streets on Guy Fawkes Day, November 5, when they carry straw effigies of Guy Fawkes and beg for money for fireworks to celebrate the day. Fawkes was a traitor who attempted with conspirators to blow up both houses of Parliament in 1605; the "gunpowder plot" failed. Those...Kingdom: Those who have represented something positive and direct are blessed in Paradise. The reference is to Dante's "Paradiso". crossed staves: scarecrows tumid river: swollen river. The River Acheron in Hell in Dante's "Inferno". The damned must cross this river to get to the land of the dead. Multifoliate rose: in dante's "Divine Comedy" paradise is described as a rose of many leaves. prickly pear: cactus Between...act: a reference to "Julius Caesar" "Between the acting of a dreadful thing/And the first motion, all the interim is/Like a phantasma or a hideous dream." For...Kingdom: the beginning of the closing words of the Lord's Prayer |
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