Mr. Kurtz
A character in the novel Heart of Darkness, by Joseph Conrad. Kurtz is a corrupt European ivory trader in Africa, who dies on a boat on the Congo river.
The manager's boy
A character in the novel Heart of Darkness, by Joseph Conrad. He is an African servant who announces the death of Kurtz—the voice quoted in the first epigraph.
Guy Fawkes
A conspirator to blow up British Parliament in the failed Gunpowder Plot of 1605.
A British child begging for a penny
The voice of the second epigraph. He is offering an effigy to burn while begging for money to buy fireworks on Guy Fawkes Day.
The Hollow Men
A group of amoral, paralyzed scarecrows stuck on a riverbank, unable to generate enough faith in the afterlife to cross over to the other side.
Those who have crossed/With direct eyes, to death’s other kingdom
The dead, who judge the Men to be Hollow.
Children
They sing a perverse version of a nursery rhyme at the beginning and end of the last stanza. This chorus could also be interpreted as the voices of the Hollow Men.
Priest
He recites a parody of a liturgy in the final stanza, in which the Shadow of death prevents all fulfillment.
Congregation
The chorus in italics in the last stanza who attempt and fail to recite the Lord’s Prayer. This chorus could also be interpreted as the voices of the Hollow Men.
