What is the answer to the elusive question that is immortality? According to the reveled rulers of the ancient lands, one lived forever in the vast monuments that these authorities had crafted as representations of their supremacy. Ironically, however, it is because of these “immortal” renditions, that we have proof of just how evanescent life – no matter how formidable, can be. Nevertheless, those rulers who thirsted for immortality still live on due to their stories being captured forever in literature. In his poem “Ozymandias,” Romantic poet Percy Shelley uses metaphors, imagery, and an allegorical motif to demonstrate that while man believes he is invincible, death is inevitable to all regardless of their stature and only in the poetry do we remain as everlasting.
Beginning with the poem, we see Shelley’s use of metaphor conveys a theme of mortality throughout the poem. The speaker meets a traveler from “an antique land,” and due to the traveler’s …show more content…
The stone remains are “half sunk” within the desert, beaten and ravaged by the immeasurable force of the elements and time (4). Knowing that the landscape is a desert, we can see the winds battering the ruins until they disappear within the sand – eventually, Ozymandias’s statue will cease to exist forever. Nevertheless, the remaining pieces of the statue make enough of an impression on the traveler that he shares the story with the speaker. The stone face of Ozymandias has a: “frown, / And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,” which gives us a glimpse into who he was as a man and a leader (4-5). This representation of who Ozymandias was parallels that of the imagery of the landscape. It is ironic that a man of “cold command” would end up deteriorating in a “boundless and bare” landscape. The use of “boundless,” “bare,” and “lone” creates a bleak resolution that all powers, regardless of magnitude, must eventually
Beginning with the poem, we see Shelley’s use of metaphor conveys a theme of mortality throughout the poem. The speaker meets a traveler from “an antique land,” and due to the traveler’s …show more content…
The stone remains are “half sunk” within the desert, beaten and ravaged by the immeasurable force of the elements and time (4). Knowing that the landscape is a desert, we can see the winds battering the ruins until they disappear within the sand – eventually, Ozymandias’s statue will cease to exist forever. Nevertheless, the remaining pieces of the statue make enough of an impression on the traveler that he shares the story with the speaker. The stone face of Ozymandias has a: “frown, / And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,” which gives us a glimpse into who he was as a man and a leader (4-5). This representation of who Ozymandias was parallels that of the imagery of the landscape. It is ironic that a man of “cold command” would end up deteriorating in a “boundless and bare” landscape. The use of “boundless,” “bare,” and “lone” creates a bleak resolution that all powers, regardless of magnitude, must eventually