Rapacious Vanity: Ozymandias

As humans, we all crave appreciation for our great works and deeds. For most a simple pat on the back for a job well done is enough to assuage this desire. Yet for others, a G-d complex makes them thirst for more. Their life becomes nothing but a linear trajectory towards their advancement paved with the poor souls left behind in the battle for greater things. All other of life’s great enjoyments are frivolous and deemed distractions. Yet, what happens when this G-d reaches their end? Percy Bysshe Shelly captures the answer to this question in the cautionary tale Ozymandias.

Shelly opens the poem with the framing device of a speaking traveler; one who knows life, has lived it fully, and seen it for its various wonders. Here, the wanderer begins with the image of sandblasted, broken, and trunk-less statue in the desert. Upon further reading, it is found that this statue is of none other than Ozymandias, or Ramses II of Egypt. The inscription at the bottom of this tells all who pass that this is in fact the king of kings, to look upon his works and despair! Just in the inscription one can see this was a man who lived a life of vain trajectory who relied solely upon his works to define him. He set out to have great statues placed in his honor all about the lands and here one stands in sand. Yet, the legs are trunkless, much like the missing heart and soul of a ruthless leader. The shattered visage that lies upon the soft sands, mocked to perfection by the sculpture, shows a cold sneer and wrinkled lips. This is not a face of joy but one of bitterness for never achieving true happiness. And all of this is found in the middle of the desert by a single wonderer as the level sands stretch far and wide. Ozymandias’ single passion in life became all for which he was known. Happiness met vanity in the desert and happiness was able to walk away where as the statue, being vanity incarnate, was cursed to stand still in the sands of time.

Life is truly a balance of all things and Shelly was well aware of this. Through the use of a framing device to dichotomize the two extremes, the reader can see where a balance is needed in life to avoid being left as a shattered image in the timeline of history. By finding this balance, one can avoid the lone and level stretch of sands.