Coursework question

Larkins poetry shows 'a society pursuing its fantasies and illusory satisfactions in material possessions'
 - Andrew Swarbrick

Using ideas from the critical anthology to support your argument, to what extent do you agree

essential beauty, the large cool store, Take One Home for the Kiddies and send no money

The Hollow Men T.S Eliot

Is doing nothing and remaining neutral worse than actively committing evil? Why or why not?

T.S Eliot describes the hollow men in his poem as shadows, saying that they fall 'between the idea and the reality, between the motion and the act' and thus suggesting that these hollow men are passive and don't do anything, they have the thoughts but don't change the thoughts into actions; they remain in between. Later he claims that they fall between the 'potency and the existence' conveying the idea that these men are so hollow and passive they cannot be described as existing or being potent. A Marxist critic would believe that it is man's duty to bring about change and reject the false consciousness followed by society. People who are passive and inactive in bringing about change would be viewed by a Marxist critic as having no purpose in life. Therefore, the men described in Eliot's work would be viewed in a negative way as they constantly remain in a state of nothingness.