Ozymandias

By Percy Bysshe Shelley

“Ozymandias” is a sonnet written by the English Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. Shelley wrote
“Ozymandias” in 1817 as part of a poetry contest with a friend and had it published in The Examiner
in 1818 under the pen name Glirastes. The title “Ozymandias” refers to an alternate name of the
ancient Egyptian pharaoh Ramesses II. In the poem, Shelley describes a crumbling statue of
Ozymandias as a way to portray the transience of political power and to praise art’s ability to preserve
the past. Although the poem is a 14-line sonnet, it breaks from the typical sonnet tradition in both its
form and rhyme scheme, a tactic that reflects Shelley’s interest in challenging conventions, both
political and poetic.

“Ozymandias” Summary

The speaker of the poem meets a traveller who came from an ancient land. The traveller describes two
large stone legs of a statue, which lack a torso (the trunk of the human body) to connect them and
which stand upright in the desert. Near the legs, half-buried in sand, is the broken face of the statue.
The statue's facial expression—a frown and a wrinkled lip—forms a commanding, haughty sneer. The
expression shows that the sculptor understood the emotions of the person the statue is based on, and
now those emotions live on, carved forever on inanimate stone. In making the face, the sculptor’s
skilled hands mocked up a perfect recreation of those feelings and of the heart that fed those feelings
(and, in the process, so perfectly conveyed the subject’s cruelty that the statue itself seems to be
mocking its subject). The traveller next describes the words inscribed on the pedestal of the statue,
which say: "My name is Ozymandias, the King who rules over even other Kings. Behold what I have
built, all you who think of yourselves as powerful, and despair at the magnificence and superiority of
my accomplishments." There is nothing else in the area. Surrounding the remnants of the large statue
is a never-ending and barren desert, with empty and flat sands stretching into the distance.

“Ozymandias” Themes

The Transience of Power

One of Shelley’s most famous works, “Ozymandias” describes the ruins of an ancient king’s statue in
a foreign desert. All that remains of the statue are two “vast” stone legs standing upright and a head
half-buried in sand, along with a boastful inscription describing the ruler as the “king of kings” whose
mighty achievements invoke awe and despair in all who behold them. The inscription stands in ironic
contrast to the decrepit reality of the statue, however, underscoring the ultimate transience of political
power. The poem implicitly critiques such power through its suggestion that both great rulers and their
kingdoms will fall to the sands of time.

In the poem, the speaker relates a story a traveller told him about the ruins of a “colossal wreck” of a
sculpture whose decaying physical state mirrors the dissolution of its
subject’s—Ozymandias’s—power. Only two upright legs, a face, and a pedestal remain of
Ozymandias’s original statue, and even these individual parts of the statue are not in great shape: the
face, for instance, is “shattered." Clearly, time hasn’t been kind to this statue, whose pitiful state
undercuts the bold assertion of its inscription. The fact that even this “king of kings” lies decaying in a
distant desert suggests that no amount of power can withstand the merciless and unceasing passage of
time.

The speaker goes on to explain that time not only destroyed this statue, it also essentially erased the
entire kingdom the statue was built to overlook. The speaker immediately follows the king’s
declaration found on the pedestal of the statue—“Look upon my works, ye Mighty, and
despair!”—with the line “Nothing beside remains.” Such a savage contradiction makes the king’s
prideful dare almost comically naive.

Ozymandias had believed that while he himself would die, he would leave a lasting and intimidating
legacy through everything he built. Yet his words are ultimately empty, as everything he built has
crumbled. The people and places he ruled over are gone, leaving only an abandoned desert whose
“lone and level sands” imply that there's not even a trace of the kingdom’s former glory to be found.
The pedestal’s claim that onlookers should despair at Ozymandias’s works thus takes on a new and
ironic meaning: one despairs not at Ozymandias’s power, but at how powerless time and decay make
everyone.

The speaker also uses the specific example of Ozymandias to make a broader pronouncement about
the ephemeral nature of power and, in turn, to implicitly critique tyranny. The speaker evokes the
image of a cruel leader; Ozymandias wears a “frown” along with the “sneer of cold command." That
such “passions” are now recorded only on “lifeless things” (i.e., the statue) is a clear rebuke of such a
ruler, and suggests that the speaker believes such tyranny now only exists on the face of a dead and
crumbling piece of stone.

The poem's depiction of the destruction of Ozymandias and his tyranny isn’t entirely fictional:
Ozymandias is the Greek name for the Egyptian pharaoh Ramesses II, who dramatically expanded
Egypt’s empire and who had several statues of himself built throughout Egypt. In fact, the Ancient
Greek writer Diodorus Siculus reported the following inscription on the base of one of Ozymandias’s
statues: "King of Kings am I, Ozymandias. If anyone would know how great I am and where I lie, let
him surpass one of my works." By alluding to an actual ancient empire, and an actual king, the poem
reminds readers that history is full of the rises and falls of empires. No power is permanent, regardless
of how omnipotent a ruler believes himself to be. Even the “king of kings” may one day be a forgotten
relic of an “antique land.”

Theme : Power of Art

“Ozymandias” famously describes a ruined statue of an ancient king in an empty desert. Although the
king’s statue boastfully commands onlookers to “Look upon my Works, ye Mighty, and despair,”
there are no works left to examine: the king’s cities, empire, and power have all disappeared over
time. Yet even as the poem insists that “nothing beside” the shattered statue and its pedestal remains,
there is one thing that actually has withstood the centuries: art. The skillful rendering of the statue
itself and the words carved alongside it have survived long after Ozymandias and his kingdom turned
to dust, and through this Shelley’s poem positions art as perhaps the most enduring tool in preserving
humanity’s legacy.

Although the statue is a “wreck” in a state of “decay,” its individual pieces show the skill of the
sculptor and preserve the story of Ozymandias. The face is “shattered,” leaving only a mouth and nose
above the desert sand, but the “frown,” “wrinkled lip,” and “sneer” clearly show Ozymandias’s
“passions” (that is, his pride, tyranny, and disdain for others). The fragments interpret and preserve the
king’s personality and show onlookers throughout history what sort of a man and leader Ozymandias
truly was.
These fragments, then, are examples of art’s unique ability to capture and relate an individual’s
character even after their death. In fact, the poem explicitly emphasizes art’s ability to bring
personalities to life: the speaker explains that Ozymandias’s “passions” “yet survive” on the broken
statue despite being carved on “lifeless” stone. Ozymandias may be dead, yet, thanks to the sculptor
who “read” those “passions” and “mocked,” or made an artistic reproduction of them, his personality
and emotions live.

In addition to highlighting the sculptor’s artistic skill, Shelley’s poem also elevates the act of writing
through its focus on the inscription of the statue’s pedestal. The pedestal preserves Ozymandias’
identity even more explicitly than the statue itself. The inscription reveals his name, his status as
royalty (“King of Kings”), and his command for “Mighty” onlookers to “despair” at his superiority
and strength. His words are thus a lasting testament to his hubris, yet it is notably only the words
themselves—rather than the threat behind them—that survive. Without this inscription, none would
know Ozymandias’s name nor the irony of his final proclamation.

In other words, his legacy and its failure only exist because a work of art—specifically, a written
work—preserved them. The poem therefore presents art as a means to immortality; while everything
else disappears, art, even when broken and half-buried in sand, can carry humanity’s legacy.

This power of art is reflected by the composition of the poem itself. Shelley was aware that the
ancient Greek writer Diodorus Siculus had described a statue of the Egyptian pharaoh Ramses II and
had transcribed the inscription on its pedestal as "King of Kings am I, Ozymandias. If anyone would
know how great I am and where I lie, let him surpass one of my works." Shelley’s poem exists solely
because of Siculus’s description: Shelley and his friend and fellow writer Horace Smith had
challenged each other to a friendly competition over who could write the best poem inspired by
Siculus's description. This poem was Shelley’s entry, and it became by far the more famous of the
two. Like Siculus’ description of the statue, this poem keeps Ozymandias’s story and words alive for
subsequent generations.

The very composition of this poem, then, dramatises the power of art: art can preserve people, objects,
cities, and empires, giving them a sort of immortality, and letting future generations “look on [past]
works” not with despair, but with wonder.

Theme: Man Vs Nature

As a Romantic poet, Shelley was deeply respectful of nature and skeptical of humanity’s attempts to
dominate it. Fittingly, his “Ozymandias” is not simply a warning about the transience of political
power, but also an assertion of humanity’s impotence compared to the natural world. The statue the
poem describes has very likely become a “colossal Wreck” precisely because of the relentless forces
of sand and wind erosion in the desert. This combined with the fact that “lone and level sands” have
taken over everything that once surrounded the statue suggests nature as an unstoppable force to
which human beings are ultimately subservient.
Shelley’s imagery suggests a natural world whose might is far greater than that of humankind. The
statue is notably found in a desert, a landscape hostile towards life. That the statue is “trunkless”
suggests sandstorms eroded the torso or buried it entirely, while the face being “shattered” implies
humanity’s relative weakness: even the destruction of a hulking piece of stone is nothing for nature.

The fact that the remains of the statute are “half sunk” under the sand, meanwhile, evokes a kind of
burial. In fact, the statement “nothing beside remains” can be read as casting the fragments of the
statue as the “remains” of a corpse. The encroaching sand described in the poem suggests that nature
has steadily overtaken a once great civilization and buried it, just as nature will one day reclaim
everything humanity has built, and every individual human as well.
The desert, not Ozymandias, is thus the most powerful tyrant in Shelley’s poem. It is “boundless” and
“stretch[es] far away” as though it has conquered everything the eye can see, just as it has conquered
Ozymandias’s statue. Ozymandias may be the king of kings, but even kings can be toppled by mere
grains of sand.

Line for line explanation :

L- 'I met…/Who said'
The opening line and half of the poem introduces two of the poem’s speakers: the “I” of the poem
who meets a traveller, and the traveller whose words make up the rest of the poem. Put another way,
these lines establish a structure in which the speaker acts as a kind of frame through which the reader
is exposed to what the traveller has seen. The speaker has never actually seen the land the traveller
comes from, nor the statue that the traveller will go on to describe. The reader, then, encounters the
statue through first the words of the speaker, and then also through the words of the traveller. By
building such a layered structure, Shelley begins to establish the theme of art in the poem, and the way
that art, and interpretations of art, can reverberate from person to person in a way that can endure.

L- 2-3
—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,"

"Ozymandias" is an example of ekphrasis(a vivid description of a scene or, more commonly, a work
of art), which is a written representation of visual art. The ekphrasis in Ozymandias begins in its
second line, as the traveller describes the statue in the desert. The details of that description are both
important and symbolic. The traveller’s description of the “vast” legs emphasises the large
proportions of the statue, and by extension the might and power of whoever built the statue (or
ordered it to be built). The fact that the legs still “stand” upright makes the statue seem stable and
immovable, as though it has firmly planted its feet. However, this stability is at odds with the fact that
the statue is actually in ruins: it is “trunkless,” or missing its torso. The legs stand alone, sticking up
strangely from the desert. The poem then emphasises the brokenness of the statue through what might
be called a purposeful vagueness: note how the third line ends with the words "Near them, on the
sand," without actually describing what is near the legs. This vagueness creates a sense of ruins that
are indistinct and hard to make out. In just these two lines of description the poem has made clear that
a once huge statue has collapsed, and in doing so it begins to sketch the various meanings that this
destroyed work of art communicates: the "vast" power it was originally meant to convey, and to an
extent still does, but also the loss of that power. The traveller also introduces the relationship between
nature and the statue in this section: sandstorms and time itself probably caused the statue to collapse.
Since the statue naturally functions as a symbol of the human culture and power that built it, having it
be broken apart by sand suggests nature’s even greater power, and mankind’s helplessness in the face
of nature’s indifference.
L- 4-5
"Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command''

These two lines continue the description of the statue, and continue to juggle the themes of art, nature,
and the transience of power. On the one hand, the face (or "viasage") of the statue has been damaged
by time and nature. It is "half sunk" in sand. It's been "shattered." And yet, even so, the parts of the
face that remain are enough to convey realistic facial expressions and, therefore, a sense of the statue's
subject. The statue "frowns," "sneers," and has a "wrinkled lip," an expression often connected to
disgust or scorn. Line 5 ends on the words "cold command," which emphasises that the statue is of
someone who commanded, a ruler or tyrant.

L 6-8
"Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;"

In lines 6-8, the poem shifts from describing the statue to focusing on the sculptor who made the
statue. According to the traveller, the realism of the features on the statue's face reveal that the
sculptor did not simply portray Ozymandias’ physical characteristics, but rather could "read" the
"passions" that drove Ozymandias, as though those passions were lines in a book. In other words, the
poem describes the artist as having a deeper kind of understanding that allows him (or her) to not just
represent the surface of things, but rather to know and recreate the heart. The sculptor originally read
those “passions” on Ozymandias, and then carved them onto the stone, where they could be likewise
read by passersby such as the traveller who then went on to describe the statue to the speaker. The
"passions," so perfectly "read" and then re-created by the sculptor, thus live on even though the statue
itself is mostly destroyed, showing the power of art to "survive" when other things fail. The fact that
the traveller says the emotions “survive” instead of some other synonym for “last” or “endure”
heightens the contrast between the seemingly alive emotions and the “lifeless” statue. Ultimately,
because of art, Ozymandias’s personality lives on, even though he is long dead. Line 8 is notable
because it makes a subtle pun by playing on different meanings of the word "mock."

In line 8, then, the traveller is simultaneously saying that the sculptor made an excellent likeness of
Ozymandias, and that by portraying Ozymandias's cruelty so vividly, that the sculptor ridiculed, or at
least implicitly critiqued him. This double meaning of mock also resonates with a possible double
meaning of the phrase "which yet survive" in line 7. That phrase can be read as meaning that
Ozymandias's tyrannical passions live on through the art of the statue. But it can also be read to mean
that Ozymandias's tyrannical passions, which are portrayed on the statue, continue to survive among
modern humanity. In that reading, the sonnet, which describes Ozymandias becoming forgotten, could
be read as a warning or mockery of any modern people who hold ideas about power that are similar to
Ozymandias's. Another aspect of line 8 that bears some exploration has to do with the phrase "the
heart that fed." While it's fairly clear that the "hand" mentioned in the first half of line 8 belongs to the
sculptor (and not to Ozymandias), it's harder to figure out who the "heart" belongs to. The "heart" can
be read as belonging to Ozymandias, in which case the heart is feeding Ozymandias's passions.
Alternatively, the heart can belong to the sculptor, in which case the sculptor's heart feeds the
sculptor's hand—the heart drives the sculptor's artistic skill. What's interesting is that in either reading,
it is the art that has allowed Ozymandias's passions to survive through time. Either the sculptor's art
has captured and portrayed Ozymandias's "heart," or the sculptor's art, driven by his heart, has
captured Ozymandias's "passions." It is only art, and not political might, that gives Ozymandias any
kind of immortality.

L 9-11
"And on the pedestal, these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!"

Line 9 explains that not only did some of the visual artistry of the sculpture survive the ravages of
nature and time, so too did some words. The poem then quotes the words ("My name is
Ozymandias...") and it becomes clear that the words are not the sculptor's, but rather Ozymandias's
own. Ozymandias's statement is enormously boastful, and basically say that he is so powerful and
accomplished that even other powerful and accomplished people will despair if they try to measure
themselves against him. Ozymandias's words are also revealing about his views about legacy and
political power. Ozymandias believes that his legacy will outlive him, and that those who see this
statue will also see all of his "works," which can be understood to mean the entire empire over which
he rules. Put more broadly, Ozymandias believes that political power, and the things that can be built
with political power, will endure, and that therefore his own legacy will endure as well.

L 12-14
"Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

When, in lines 10 and 11 of the poem, Ozymandias's proclamation implying that he will always be
remembered and feared himself is quoted, it was immediately clear that his boast was empty. After all,
the boast was made on the pedestal of a toppled, ruined statue. But line 12 ratchets the irony of
Ozymandias's failed claims to another level. First, the line links the statue fragments to rotting human
flesh rather than stone: they are “decay,” and the word “remains” in the phrase “Nothing beside
remains” could just as easily refer to human remains, or a corpse, as it could to the verb “to remain.”
Through this language, the poem connects the statue's collapse to Ozymandias's death—both his
literal death and his "death" from history in the form being forgotten. But these lines also mark a more
profound change in the nature of the poem's irony. In these lines, the focus of the poem shifts from the
statue itself to the land surrounding. As it does, the subject of the poem's irony also shifts. Up until
this point, the irony in the poem might be described as being a delicious irony, in which the reader
could enjoy how the arrogant Ozymandias, who was so certain of his legacy, had in fact been
forgotten. But as the poem concludes and it becomes clear that not only was Ozymandias buried by
nature and time, so was the entire empire he once commanded, the irony ceases to be something that
the reader can enjoy. The poem concludes with an image of a monotonous expanse of sand: nothing
grows on or in it, it doesn’t vary, and it stretches as far as the eye can see. Since the desert has
destroyed everything human-made (and not just Ozymandias), the poem implies that the joke, which
up until this point the reader thought was being played on Ozymandias, is in fact being played on all
of humanity. It's not just Ozymandias who will end up lost and forgotten. It's everyone, and everything
human-made. While it would be silly to despair at the might of forgotten Ozymandias, the poem's
conclusion suggests that the reader should despair about ending up like him: forgotten, buried by the
awesome and implacable sands of nature and time. However, despite this pessimistic reading, an
optimistic one can simultaneously exist. After all, the statue may be broken, but it still caught the
traveller's attention enough for him to tell the speaker about Ozymandias, and then the speaker in turn
preserved Ozymandias's legacy in this poem. This chain of events demonstrates that art, whether
statue or sonnet, can preserve individuals, passions, and even give a form of artistic immortality.

Symbols in the poem :

SAND
Sand is a symbol for nature’s power and also for time itself. The sand has eroded and buried the statue
and all of Ozymandias’s works, a reminder that nature can destroy all human achievements, no matter
how substantial. Because it also destroyed the statue over time, and because of the idea of sand in an
hourglass, sand is also a symbol for time, which has similarly worn down and eventually buried
Ozymandias's empire .

THE STATUE
The statue of Ozymandias has a few different symbolic meanings. First, it is a physical representation
of the might of human political institutions, such as Ozymandias’s empire — this is the symbolic
purpose for which Ozymandias himself had the statue built. However, because the statue has fallen
into disrepair, it also holds a symbolic meaning that Ozymandias didn't intend: how comparatively
fragile human political institutions actually are in the face of both time and nature’s might.
The statue also symbolises the power of art. Through the sculptor's skill, the statue captures and
preserves the "passions" of its subject by stamping them on "lifeless" rock. And the statue also
symbolises the way that art can have power beyond the intentions of even those who commission it.
While Ozymandias saw the statue as a way to forever capture his power and magnificence, the poem
hints that the statue so thoroughly reveals Ozymandias's haughty cruelty that it also serves to mock
him. While Ozymandias's great works have been destroyed and disappeared by nature and time, art in
the form of the stature endures, both keeping Ozymandias's memory alive, but not in entirely the ways
he would have wanted. It is also possible to interpret the statue in a third way. Because Ozymandias is
clearly a tyrant, the fact that the statue has become a "wreck" hints that the statue might symbolically
represent the speaker of the poem's hope and belief that tyranny will always crumble, which also
happened to be one of fragments: it contains three dots separated by spaces. As a result, it even more
closely embodies the fragments of the statue spread out on the sand.

Textual question answer

Q5.
A. "Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!" Who is Ozymandias referring to when he speaks of
'ye Mighty'? Why should they despair?

Ans. Ozymandias is an arrogant king. He is contemptuous of other lesser mortals than him. He
challenges the mighty and powerful persons as well as the Almighty, to look at wonderful
achievements. If they dare to compare themselves with him, they will feel humbled, discouraged and
disappointed.

B. Bring out the irony in the poem.

Ans. The words of Ozymandias, 'the king of kings' prove to be tragic and ironical. The irony in the
poem is brought about by the message that the poem gives to the readers. The memorial or the huge
statue was erected to overawe and dazzle the posterity. It displayed the power, glory and grandeur of
king Ozymandias. But what is the result? The statue that was to perpetuate Ozymandias' memory lies
broken into pieces on the sand in a desert. Nothing has remained except the boundless and bare sand
stretching all around.

C. The poem re-emphasizes the idea that political power is transient but art is eternal and it survives.
Do you agree? Why/Why not?

Ans. In the poem 'Ozymandias', the king portrayed as a man who is content only when he was in a
state where he enjoyed power, might, worldly pleasures. After his death, nothing remained, time had
wiped every trace of his kingdom, there was a vast sandy desert that remained. The magnificence of
the piece of art survived the ravages of time, because even in the broken pieces the expression was
finely etched, allowing the viewer to get to know the character of the man whose statue it was. This is
indeed an underscoring of the ultimate transience of political power. The poem implicitly critiques
such power through its suggestion that both great rulers and their kingdoms will fall to the sands of
time.

D. Overarching ambition can lead to great leaders and their downfall. Substantiate your position in
favour or in opposition to this statement, with two points each.

Ans. The concept of excessive pride leading to negative consequences is a universal theme, that
showcases the vanity of power and the fragility of glory. Throughout history, the expansion of empires
is simultaneously shadowed by their impending collapse, with the emperors rising only to eventually
fall.

In favour: The rise and fall of Hitler; The rise and fall of the British Empire.
Against: If the ambition is overached in favour of self, opposed to the country only then does it fall; If
pride and arrogance enters the self, the fall begins, otherwise things continue to move smoothly.

E. “Nothing beside remains." What does the narrator mean when he says these words?

Ans. Ozymandias, the king of kings, the mightiest ruler of his times had led the life of a man
perpetually in pursuit of power, might, worldly pleasures. He had fought many battles and expanded
his kingdom to an unthinkable vastness. After his death, nothing remained, time had wiped every trace
of his kingdom, there was a vast sandy desert that remained. Only the piece of art survived the ravages
of time, and even in the broken pieces of the statue one could read the expression of the face lying on
the ground and get to know what sort of man he actually was.

F. What message is conveyed through this poem?

Ans. Nothing is permanent in this world. Everything is transient and gets washed away by the tides of
time. We might run after material pursuits but they do not give us permanent happiness. We are
blinded by our ego, arrogance and thirst for power which are not lasting hence, can never give lasting
happiness. The king tried to perpetuate his name and wanted to create all that he could to prove his
might, his power to the world. But little did he realise the irony that his fate would not let anything of
the sort happen. Nothing was left with time - his kingdom, his self - everything mingled with dust.
Only a vast sandy desert land remained.

Q9. Ans.
Dear Diary

I thought I was the mightiest of all but this misconception was soon disrupted. Traversing over the
desert, I was dumbfounded with great shock when I discovered that my statue was lying broken,
without head and body, in an eroded state. I had never imagined this. I was the greatest, the mightiest,
and I believed that the coming generations would worship or pay respect to my statue. The condition
of my statue pained me. All my achievements, my confidence in my power was razed to the ground.
There was sand and loneliness all around. No one seemed to remember any of my achievements and
power. When I was alive I never considered anyone and thought myself superior to all. But I was
wrong, power and riches can never last long. A person can be immortalised and dwell in the hearts of
people of posterity not by big statues but by good deeds. I should have devoted my life to the welfare
of my people, looked after them with compassion and care, may be then the fate of my statue would
have been different.

Ozymandias

Q10.

Ans. Both Shakespeare and Shelley, in their respective poems, speak about the destructive power of
time and its impact on life which can be looked at from two different points of views. One is where
time causes things to mature and grow, while the other is the course of destruction it chooses to
assume at times. Time is ruthless and impartial. It treats everything and everyone in the same manner.
In the two given sonnets, the poets have chosen to incorporate the destructive interpretation of time, as
it achieves the goal of impacting the reader with its powerful and strong images, while also depicting
the superiority of art. While Shakespeare in Not Marble, chooses to say that time ravishes every thing
and all that remains is his verse. Shelly is of the opinion that nature and its ways (here sand) is the
only thing that remains as everything else is destroyed by time. Shelley has however, appreciated the
talent of the sculptor who had carved the broken statue of King Ozymandias.

Q11. Ans. Mrs Packletide is a shallow, vain and pretentious woman. Most of her activities are dictated
by her emotions of jealousy, ill-will and bitterness against Loona Bimberton - her arch rival. She is
overpowered with absolute jealousy and is driven by her competitive nature and craze for publicity.
She seeks refuge in hypocrisy and foolishness, in her endeavour to belittle her rival. She makes use of
her massive financial resources to carry out her whimsical endeavour - that of shooting a tiger, which
however, takes her down several steps of the ladder.

On the other hand, in 'Ozymandias', Shelley describes the ruin of an ancient king's statue in a foreign
desert. All that remains of the statue are two 'vast' stone legs standing upright and a head half-buried
in sand, along with a boastful inscription describing the ruler as the 'king of kings' whose mighty
achievements would invoke awe and despair in all who behold them. The inscription stands in ironic
contrast to the worn-out reality of the condition of the statue. This was indeed an underscoring of the
ultimate transience implicitly critiques such power through of political power. The poem imp its
suggestion that both great rulers and their kingdoms will fall to the sands of time. The emptiness of
their lives is thus evident, conveying to the readers, the future of selfishness, misuse of power, vanity
and arrogance.

Q12. Ans.
Monday
10:00 p.m.
April, 20XX

Dear Diary

The moment I saw the vast stretches of sand I could not contain my excitement. In the midst of this
sandy desert, I saw the remnants of an emperor.

It was, in fact, a broken statue in the middle of the desert. I looked around for the face of the statue
which I found lying near it, half-buried in the sand. The face was broken but the expression of sneer
and cold command could easily be seen on it. One could easily make out that the person must have
been cruel and arrogant. The sculptor had captured the facial contours of a 'wicked and arrogant'
person with excellence. Then my eyes fell on the pedestal on which the name 'Ozymandias' was
inscribed. Perhaps, he had got his statue carved as he wanted the world to remember him even after
his death without realising that time does not spare even the 'king of kings'. I have learnt a lesson on
humility during this sojourn through the sands.

XYZ