The hollowness of European ideals exposed in Heart of Darkness and The Hollow MenKurtz occupies a peculiar position in Conrad's Heart of Darkness and TS Eliot's "The Hollow Men" . "Mr. Kurtz, he's dead" is the epigraph to "The Hollow Men." Eliot makes an obvious allusion to Kurtz, the morally empty man in Heart of Darkness. Left to his own devices, Kurtz commits frightening acts such as shrinking human heads and making terrible sacrifices. Kurtz is armed only with his culture's dubious sense of moral superiority and desire to civilize the natives (Dahl 34). This front quickly crumbles in the face of the noble and savage ways offered by Africa. The crumbling front leaves only an empty void of desired ideas and morals. This emptiness is what Eliot relies on to develop his idea of ​​emptiness. Kurtz is a fitting example of the hollowness of the European ideals that Eliot wanted to expose. TS Eliot's "The Hollow Men" uses Conrad's Kurtz to reinforce the idea of ​​emptiness present in contemporary Western thought, because Kurtz is a "European model" and represents the ideas of the modern Western Everyman. Kurtz is a prototype of a European thinker and citizen. It is the product of idealistic, progressive, and optimistic thinking (Dahl 34). Kurtz is a Renaissance man, being a musician, painter, journalist, and a "universal genius" (71). Kurtz performs all his duties so well that Marlow can never figure out Kurtz's true occupation. Marlow can imagine Kurtz as a "painter who wrote for newspapers" as well as a "journalist who could paint" (71). Kurtz's universal talent also extends to the field of politics, where he could have been a "splendid leader of an extreme party", indeed of any party (71). Kurtz was highly respected... mid-paper... in Germany and later in Vietnam and Cambodia (Anderson 404). In all likelihood, Heart of Darkness was only a prelude to the atrocities that might have been committed if European thinking had continued as it was. Eliot explicitly states that one of the themes of Part V is "the present decay of Eastern Europe" (Roessel 55). Eliot built on this theme of moral vacuity in “The Hollow Men,” making Kurtz and his actions representative of contemporary European thought. Works Cited Anderson, Walter E. "Heart of Darkness: The Sublime Spectacle. University of Toronto Quarterly 57(3 ) (1998): 404-421. Dahl, James C. "Kurtz, Marlow, Conrad and the Human Heart of Darkness" Studies in the Literary Imagination 1(2) (1968): 33-40.Roessel, David. The Day of Guy Fawkes and the Peace of Versailles in 'The Hollow Men' 28(1) (1990): 52-58.