What is the symbolic meaning of the "wasteland" in Eliot's The Waste Land?

The Waste Land is a milestone in modern British and American poetry, the most representative work in symbolism literature, Eliot's famous work and the most far-reaching work. The withered wasteland symbolizes the vulgar and ugly people alive and dead-the hope of resurrection. As a main line, the cold and hazy picture that runs through the whole poem profoundly shows the true face of western society, full of people's desire to cross, spiritual degradation, moral decay, and despicable and ugly life, and conveys Westerners' disgust, general disappointment and disillusionment with the world and reality after World War I, showing the mental illness and spiritual crisis of a generation, thus denying it. At the same time, poetry blames the fall of western society on human's "original sin", and regards the restoration of religious spirit as a panacea to save the western world and modern people, which embodies Eliot's conservatism and reactiveness in thought.