Spiritual crisis, cultural fragmentation, and modernity: Reinterpreting The Waste Land in the twenty-first century

Résumé

This paper examines the disillusionment, despair, cynicism, and anxiety of the present age, which have led to a disregard for established moral, religious, social, and ethical values. Religion, once a source of authority, no longer exerts significant influence on public life. Instead, the rise of the scientific spirit has fostered scepticism and agnosticism, contributing to the collapse of faith in traditional institutions. As a result, contemporary life unfolds in an atmosphere of restlessness and spiritual unease, presenting a bleak and troubling picture. Human existence appears to have lost its deeper meaning, while increasing material preoccupations place the very fabric of life at risk.
Through close interpretative reading of T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land and related works, this paper highlights Eliot’s exposure of the moral and spiritual deficiencies of modern civilisation, particularly the erosion of faith and the absence of spiritual accountability in the present generation. The emergence of the “hollow men” reflects a state in which life is reduced to material and performative existence, transforming the world into a metaphorical waste land. The paper argues that the breakdown of cultural and religious values, as represented in Eliot’s poetry, has not only persisted but has intensified in the twenty-first century. Eliot’s vision thus remains profoundly relevant for understanding the moral and existential crises of modernity.