| Summary: | Purpose:
Using the theory of sensibility and McClelland et al.’s (2013) metaphorical analysis, this study aims to analyse the accounting metaphors and meta-metaphor of The Hollow Men, a poem written by T. S. Eliot.
Design/methodology/approach
The analysis uses McClelland et al.’s (2013) five-step procedure to ascertain the poem’s metaphor use.
Findings:
The Hollow Men depicts accountants as ritualistic and accounting voices as quiet and meaningless while its meta-metaphor conveys accounting as rites and shadows.
Research limitations/implications:
Although The Hollow Men’s use of Form 4 metaphors, where neither figurative nor literal source term is named, places an onus on the reader to infer meaning from accounting metaphor use, the analysis provides readers with a valuable structure for evincing accounting metaphors that present pervasive accounting issues facing the modern world.
Practical implications:
Accountants, according to The Hollow Men, are hollow, devotees to plunderers and property and rain dancers. The Hollow Men situates the quest for accounting as a ritual for order and the preservation of the status quo.
Social implications:
The Hollow Men’s mages of accounting immersion in rites and shadows accord with the conceptual metaphors of accounting as magic and accounting as history.
Originality/value:
The originality of this study rests in its introduction to McClelland et al.’s (2013) metaphorical analysis of accounting research.
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