Anonymity in Ozymandias

Using a forgotten king as the ultimate example, Percy Shelley's "Ozymandias" attempts to demonstrate that all human beings are alike in that they are inevitably made obscure by the passing of time. The poem begins from the first person perspective with, "I met a traveller from an antique land." Not only is the identity of the traveller anonymous, but Shelley clearly does not think it is important for the speaker to have much of an identity either. The traveller proceeds to describe the ruins of a statue, located in a remote desert, featuring "Two vast trunkless legs of stone" (2) along with a severed "visage" (3) sunken in the sand nearby. The statue was once of King Ozymandias, who has been portrayed by the sculptor with a "frown and wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command" (4, 5). Clearly Ozymandias was not a man of the people, as his statue comes from the hand of someone who was intentionally trying to mock him. On a pedestal is a message from Ozymandias which reads" Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"(11). However, nothing much remains of Ozymandias' kingdom aside from the decaying ruins of the statue. It is interesting to note that nothing of Ozymandias' own creation remains, as the statue is solely the work of a sculptor. If it were not for the work of art, Ozymandias would be doomed to further obscurity, his name becoming lost with time. What this sonnet proves is that no one man can be responsible for writing history. Due to the passing nature of time, history is made up of countless individuals who have and will continue to go through cycles of creation and destruction. Some of these individuals will forever be anonymous in name, like the poem's speaker, or the traveler he/she meets. Others, like Ozymandias, will be remembered in name, but in the grand scheme of time their achievements will be made irrelevant.