The Waste Land Symbolises the Moral Decay of Western Civilization

The 20th century began with a host of question marks. The Enlightenment view of human rationality and goodness was questioned; the belief in natural rights and objective standards governing morality were attacked. Shattering old beliefs, this century left Europeans without landmarks, without generally accepted cultural standards or agreed upon conceptions about human beings and life¿s meaning. T.S. Eliot¿s ¿The Waste Land¿ is a realistic complex depiction of the post-War Western civilization, where people suffer from moral and spiritual decay. The poem is a lamentation over the devastations of the war, which left people with nothing except mourning the dead. It is also a sour commentary over the loss of moral values, the embracing of bestial way of life and the discrediting of traditional wisdom and values.