Considering the title the reader may be curious to find out why the poet uses the adjective ‘waste’ in order to connote the land. The adjective stands for something undeveloped or for rubbish; In both cases, the adjective connotes negatively the land. Therefore the reader may expect the poem to be about a Land (and so a culture) that seems to be uncivilised, degraded, ruined.
‘The Waste Land’ is arranged into 5 sections, therefore the poet seems to philosophically analyse the problem for all the possible prospective. Indeed, the poet brings to surface men’s desolation through:

1. The analysis of the opposition death-life in ‘the burial of the dead’
2. The opposition past-present in ‘a game of chess’
3. The presentation of a loveless encounter in ‘the fire sermon’
4. A reflection on the spiritual shipwreck in ‘death by water’

In the last section (‘what the thunder said’) the poet tries to give a possible solution that however doesn’t seem to change men’s destiny.
All in all, the titles of the sections seem to anticipate the contents of the poem; For example ‘the burial of the dead’, recalls the funeral service in the Anglican rite and so it evokes the opposition death-life. On the other hand, ‘a game of chess’ reminds to the reader of the typical logocentrism of the Past and at the same time it recalls the idea of the exchange-opposition between past and present. The title ‘The fire of the sermon’ anticipates the squalid nature of the encounter juxtaposing the image of fire-passion with the religious character of the composition (sermon). On the other side, ‘Death by water’ anticipates the downfall of the spirituality.
Last but not least, it is interesting to consider the title of the last section, that aims to give a possible solution to men’s condition: in order to unveil the mysterious solution, the poet uses a natural entity instead of a religious one, and so he let the thunder speak.