Ozymandias, by Percy Bysshe Shelley, is a poem about the colossal wreck companionless over from what used to be a fantastic empire. In the middle of a barrenness were language mushroom, sun, and therefrom more buff are the burdened stone legs and head of what plain used to be a pretty impressive statue of Rameses II ( or Ozymandias in Greek, which just sounds way storeroom ). The address at the base reads, My john hancock is Ozymandias, potentate of kings: / Look on my works, ye Mighty, and dejection! Which makes us giggle, since everything around the statue is totally empty for what looks resembling a 50 - mile span. ( SOME one At sea his EMMMM PIRE!!! )
Adding to the overall sensuality of scorched is the fact that the poem is told in the foregone anxious ( which adds chronological distance ) by an humble outsider ( which adds narrative distance ) about a faraway place ( which adds good ol fashioned regular distance ). Can you hear the echo? Though were tempted to scoff at Ozy and his delusions of grandeur, what we humblingly realize as we sit in our pajamas eating generic - brand cereal is that hey, this guy had a nation! Aside from a carbon footprint, how am I ever supposed to make my mark on the world? ( A plot to change the lettering on the Trump Tower quickly develops )
Now that youve been thrown into a crippling existential funk ( which would make a great band name, by the way ), lets think about the end of a more recent age, like the Roaring Twenties in an economically - booming America. Any literary works come to mind? Probably The Great Gatsby, which, as youll notice, also happens to be told retrospectively in the third person about a faraway place socio - economically speaking. Theres that echo again. Like Ozymandias, Gatsby is determined to achieve greatness though in his case, its because hes magnetically drawn to a mysterious single green light, minute and far away. Aliens? The 7 - 11?? An industrial - strength insect zapper?!? Probably just the light from East Egg, the really posh part of Long Island where his disgustingly wealthy and utterly unattainable high - school sweetheart lives.
While Gatsbys aim is not to build an actual empire, he might as well have, considering the amount of trouble he ends up going through: he denies his family, changes his name, spends years working underground as a bootlegger, amasses a fortune, assumes a new identity, buys a huge mansion in an expensive neighborhood, and then proceeds to squander his entire life savings on lavish parties for entitled how do we put this? morons, ALL to impress an old high - school fling who isnt especially nice to begin with. ( And you thought finding your photo in someone elses locker crossed a line. ) Unfortunately for Gatsby, the money runs out, the girlfriend bails out, the husband finds out, and Gatsby, well, Gatsby gets shot. The end! Kind of. Much like Ozymandiass shattered monument, Gatsby symbolically leaves a part of himself behind in that eerie green light streaming out over the bay, and while this remnant does little justice to what he once was, it nevertheless underscores the emptiness of the surrounding moral wasteland. Go suck an egg, East Egg!
