Amanda Moscirella
Professor Petukhov
English 102

Power is in the eye of the beholder
Hitler, Castro, and many others had tried to be so powerful that it ended in their biggest downfall. Everyone is only human all power has a cost. The most powerful people in the world can’t be powerful forever. No one is immortal. The Author Percy Bysshe Shelley shows power must eventually end by describing a statue of an old ruler through a poem called Ozymandias. The author describes the statue as a traveler to a person and also that it used to be a feared man but it is no longer. It holds a greater symbolic meaning then what meets the eye. What one person sees can be the opposite of another. If a ruler sees himself as the great all mighty then he will act like it, but the subjects below them won’t always agree, and all the power you thought you had will all equal to no respect. What is power without any respect?
Power is nothing without respect, you can’t gain people to help you and follow you if you do not have their respect. The statue Percy Shelley describes seems to follow that even though the king held himself in high esteem many others obviously did not. In fact, the author shows that no matter how powerful a ruler may be, that time ruling will eventually end. The distancing of the narrative serves to undermine his power over us just as completely as has the passage of time. The author uses symbolizing words such as in the last line “The lone and level sands stretch far away.” The word sand represents time and that time erases all. Also, third to last line “Nothing besides remains. Round the decay.” This symbolizes that time has passed and there’s nothing to show for it. That what remains doesn’t have any worth, and that power comes at a price. Another example is the seventh line that “Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things.” The line shows that the things that are left has no meaning or life. It is useless just as is the statue that is in the sand and stand for nothing. The statues whole body isn’t around and the head is away from where the statue would be standing. This shows really no one cares to fix it or even respects the statue, the ruler couldn’t have been that good of a ruler for no one to care about it. Ozymandias obviously when having it sculpted wanted the opposite effect, he wanted people to remember and be intimidated by his face forever. The face has a ‘sneer of cold command’ his face was to show it was no joke. He glorified his own authority as he was so proud of his power that he had.
Furthermore the statue that Percy Bysshe Shelley describes is one that most literary scholars believe is derived from the ancient Egyptian ruler Ramses II, or Ramses the Great. “Ramses is remembered for his many imposing monuments, as well as for his roles as warrior, king, and peacemaker who made Egypt a world power again.” (Gale 177) Shelley states in the poem “King of Kings” and this is how Ramses II classified himself as. The line itself shows he thought he was the best of rulers, and he puts himself in high esteem. Ramses was ruling during 1302-1213 B.C.E. “Ramses was determined to be a monument builder and make a name for himself. He went so far as to remove the names of other pharaohs on existing monuments and replace them with his own name.” (Gale 177) The ruler took away all the pharaohs names and replaced them with his own name, this symbolizes how in the poem Ozymandias claims to be the all mighty, and he also put look on his works. Ozymandias seems to have a huge ego and his power had went to his head. The writer Percy Shelley brought out how Ozymandias seemed vain and stuck up about himself and his works. Though at the time of the ruling of Ozymandias was in power and control, it seems that with his passing many didn’t agree or didn’t like for his statue to not still be standing fully together. They also couldn’t have found him to be as great of a ruler as he states for there to be nothing left or no one to