The theme of the poem encompasses simultaneously several levels of experience arising out of various waste lands: the waste land of religion in which there are rocks but no water: the waste land of spirit from which all moral and spiritual springs have evaporated: and the waste land of the instinct for fertility where sex has become merely a mechanical means of animal satisfaction rather than a potent, life giving source of regeneration.
The Waste Land is primarily concerned with the theme of barrenness, and symbolically this is related to the myth of the waste land, as shown by Jessie Weston in her book From Ritual to Romance. Weston deals with the legends about the quest for the Holy Grail (the cup used by Christ at the last supper ) which depict a region blighted by a cruel curse. Consequently, nothing can grow on this land: crops and animals cannot continue their reproductive functions and the land has lost its fertility. The plight of this waste land is also connected with the plight of the region's lord, the Fisher King. The Fisher King has been robbed of his power to procreate; he is rendered impotent either through physical sickness or maiming. How is this curse, which has blighted the land and its Lord, to be removed? In the original legend the sterility is physical, whereas in Eliot's poem it is primarily spiritual.
The poem deals with 'two kinds of death and two kinds of life' and with the contrast that this fact offers. In one context life which becomes devoid of meaning is equivalent to death, while in another context sacrificial death is shown as life-giving, as almost a means of securing the renewal of life. The poem projects the 'superb trinity of culture, sex and religion' both as a primary goal of humanity and as something responsible for the deplorable state of western civilization where these impulses work in a mutual isolation. Eliot's poems reveals facets of these three fundamentals features of human life in their spiritual and social contexts, and attempts to project his vision of life as well as his evaluation of the condition of barrenness which afflicts modern western civilization.
( The main character of the poem is Tiresias who is an old ancient Greek mythological character and has the characteristics of both the sexes. He has watched the the depressing spectacle of modern humanity which has fallen from the ancient heights to the depths of the sea. This is the camera eye that moves backwards and forwards, he can move about in history and in time he can become a modern city-man, a medieval, or an ancient Greek at will. )
Both the legends symbolize the contemporary degeneration and spiritual sterility. Fisher King symbolizes the sick society. As Fisher king suffers due to his sexual sense so the society suffers due to its pervert sex.Sex has degenerated in lust and it has limited itself to animal compulation.
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