The circumstances of seem to be referred to in line 10, ("dry cellar"), line 16 ("violent souls"), and in the operation of the Shadow in section five of Eliot's poem, whatever it is in human affairs or within human beings that prevents fulfilment and success. The failure of the plot sounds clearly in the final lines of the poem, a macabre-comic chorus. Indeed the world of the King, his Lords and his Commons did not end with an explosive "bang" that day, whereas for Guy Fawkes and his fellow-conspirators, there was the " whimper" of death.