The poem begins with a double epigraph, assembled as one short stanza. Both are in colloquial speech, which contrasts with the stanzas that follow, as well as much of the poetry being produced at the time of writing. The first line, “Mistah Kurtz-he dead” (Epigraph) is a reference to Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness; the second, “A penny for the Old Guy” (Epigraph) is a reference to the British custom of begging for coins as part of the celebrations for Guy Fawkes Day, also known as Bonfire Night. Both lines allude to people guilty of violence and arrogance, eventually leading them to an untimely end. This suggests that the “hollow men” who narrate the poem may have lived similar lives or made similar choices that brought them to this place.

In the first canto, T.S. Eliot immediately establishes the first-person narration from the opening lines: “We are the hollow men / We are the stuffed men” (Lines 1-2). Later, he uses the first-person pronoun “I” to establish that the speaker is not a collective, but an individual speaking on behalf of a collective. This opening stanza establishes the men as figures reminiscent of scarecrows, “filled with straw” (Line 4) and speaking in “dried voices” (Line 5).