Word+Choice

Word Choice



Pedestal (line 9): The engraving that explains the importance of Ozymandias is placed on a pedestal. When somebody is "placed on a pedestal" it means that they are especially important to the person putting them there and favored. Perhaps the engraving on the pedestal that is being destroyed shows the irony of favoring a person in this way. This destruction points out that it is unrealistic and that nobody deserves that treatment. Nobody is better than anybody else. There is no point in giving them this status if they will be forgotten anyway. Perhaps when they are placed on pedestal they can be remembered for slightly longer through art. Art is the only way others can be remembered for a longer amount of time, but the individual will still not be remembered long enough to make this a worthwhile use of time. Mocked (line 8): According to the [|Oxford English Dictionary], to mock means to impose upon. The common definition is to ridicule. In "Ozymandias", mock is used to mean that Ozymandias imposed rules and demands on his subjects and led in this way. Now Ozymandias is being "mocked" in the sense that his statue's remains are destroyed and carelessly scattered in sand. His idea, that he was so important, is being ridiculed by this show of unimportance.



I met a traveler from an antique land Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand, Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown, And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command, 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; And on the pedestal these words appear: “My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!” Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare, The lone and level sands stretch far away.  Home