The most striking effects in The Waste Land are achieved through the play of jarring juxtaposition, inconsistency of perception, multiplicity of narration, and fluidity of time and place. In this poem Eliot embodied an intense vision of the post-war disintegration of European civilization.

The ‘waste land’ is a wilderness of the spirit viewed mostly against the background of squalid London life Through this “heap of broken images” Eliot holds up the barrenness of life from which faith has fled. This scattered vision of spiritual disruption is expressed in one of the most striking openings in English poetry: April is the cruelest month, breeding Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing Memory and desire, stirring Dull roots with string rain.