TS Eliot's The Waste Land begins with a Latin epigraph referring to the story of Apollo's prophetess, the Sibyl of Cumae. Apollo wanted to take the prophetess as his lover and offered her everything she wanted in exchange. Sibyl asked to live as long as there were specks in a handful of dust but still refused to be Apollo's lover after he granted that wish. She soon realized that she had been granted eternal life and not eternal youth and to her dismay she grew older and older while the world remained young around her. The prophetess choosing eternal life on earth symbolizes the Western tradition of defining oneself by one's earthly heritage. The First World War then destroys Western culture and society and transforms it into the barren wasteland described by Eliot. The Latin epigraph in The Waste Land represents the deterioration of Western culture due to its beliefs in a dead tradition. The poem moves towards an Eastern tradition because of its values ​​of truth, compassion and ethical practice which represent the possible solution to heal Western culture. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay The Waste Land begins with The Burial of the Dead, which symbolizes the death of a traditional Western religion by presenting knowledge through the absence of a physical god and, in the void, a handful of dust. The first 19 lines describe the story of an aristocratic German woman who remembers the nostalgia of her childhood contrasted with the "Dull Roots with Spring Rain"(4) which symbolize the unsuccessful state of her current life despite the regenerating rain of spring . April is the cruelest month for her because, a time that once symbolized the resurrection of Jesus and the salvation of humanity, now symbolizes death and despair. "What roots cling, what branches grow/ From this stony rubbish? Son of man,/ You cannot tell, nor guess, for you alone know/ A heap of broken images..." (20-22 ) This Now the speaker questions Western religion itself and raises doubts in believing in what we have been told is God but have not experienced ourselves. The speaker wonders what is gained by following this god that we don't really know. I think they connect Western religion to "stone rubbish" because Western religion offers the same illusion of solidity that a stone can offer, but offers nothing of real substance. They then go on to say, “I will show you fear in a handful of dust.”(30) This connects directly to the Latin epigraph of Sibyl and her emptiness of a long meaningless life. The Western tradition ends with a feeling of emptiness, despite what you have acquired, because of its beliefs about meaninglessness. Eliot concludes this hopeless Western epic with the offer of a solution through an alternative understanding of values. This solution arrives: "...a flash. Then a wet gust/ Bringing rain." (394-5) This rain comes as a relief to the barren and desolate land and in the next lines we are taken to the banks of the makeshift Ganga, where finally even its limp leaves feel the rain. The speaker then expresses the three duties and values ​​of the Eastern Hindu tradition: Datta, Dayadhyam and Damyata. Datta, in Hindu means "to give" and the speaker asks us what we have given and reflecting on the poem we realize that we have only given destruction in exchange for the dead culture in which we live. This was illustrated perfectly in the first section of the poem “That corpse you planted the year 31-42