Power In Ozymandias

Out of Percy Bysshe Shelley 's 324 published poems, Ozymandias is perhaps the most well-known. A beautifully-written poem that explores the notion of power and how misguided and amplified it really is. It moreover demonstrates the pointlessness of seeking power and dominance, and equates it to the pursuit of nothing. The whole poem consists of a travelling passerby from an "antique land" describing his encounter with the remains of the statue of an Egyptian ruler. First, he says that he stumbled upon two gigantic legs, made from stone, lying there in the desert. This already tells us that the kingdom this ruler ruled has been extinct for a long time. He then carries on to talk about the characteristics of the face, which was half buried in

In other words, he aspired to reach a level of dominance at which no one can say "no" to his disregard of human virtue and dignity without facing dire consequences.” The traveler then ascertains the sculptor’s ability to capture the nature of the ruler’s demeanor by indicating that his mockery, which in this context means imitation, of the face and its features was a good enough manifestation of the way the ruler viewed himself that it was able to further feed his heart, which in this context means ego, with self-love and affirmation. And just when you thought that this "ruler" couldn 't get any more despicable and hateful, the traveler tells us, in perhaps the most concrete evidence of the ruler’s arrogance and self-infatuation (that is, one that isn’t based on the subjective inference of the traveler), that at the base of his statue the following words are written: My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings; Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!" What an absolute bloody prick this "ruler"

So onlookers won’t despair, but on the complete contrary, they will laugh as they envision nothing but sand amidst the remains of the statue. The buildings he built- upon which he built his pride- have all been demolished. There are some theories that interpret the message in a different manner: that Ozymandias was aware that all of his accomplishments will be demolished and he wrote the last part of the message to remind the reader that all attempts at being in a capacity of power and reigning over people are null because, in the end, all the power you’ve seeked through your lifetime evaporates to leave no trace after you die. I, personally, believe that this take is not consistent with the constrained and one-dimensional personality we’ve established of Ozymandias. In the end, the poet stresses his point on how this "ruler" has been forgotten and erased from the minds of people. Even his statue, which was created as an attempt to preserve his existence, has turned into massive rubble spread here and there, that a few indifferent people glance at when they are passing