The irony is that they consider themselves stuffed but in the depths of their souls, they are empty. The hollow men are 'alive' but they are essentially dead to everything that has meaning. It is a type of 'life in death'. Without direction, hopeless they march through life without purpose or contribution. In the end, they can describe with great detail and clarity and yet, they accomplish nothing....learn nothing....feel nothing...and don't have the ablity to, perhaps above all, know true beauty and be transfixed by it.