English Literature Marxist Essay: Ozymandias

To what extent can Ozymandias be seen as a Marxist text?

 

 

This poem Ozymandias was written in 1818 by Percy Bysshe Shelley. The reason he wrote this was in a friendly competition with his friend Horace Smith to convey Ramesses || and his discovery that lead to Ozymandias’ statue being in the London museum in 1821. Shelley was a Romantic and in all his work he focused on emotions and nature. Ozymandias was transience as his statue was made as a symbol of Ozymandias’s ambition, pride and absolute power, this poem suggests that kingdoms and political regimes will eventually crumble, leaving no trace of their existence. Shelley is a Bourgeoisie that was expelled from Oxford University for blasphemy and he was forced to publish his work under another name as he was ‘too dangerous’.

Shelley demonstrates the role of the class system within his work and the inequality between the two classes. The traveller mentions about the statue and how ‘The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed’ at the time that Shelley wrote the poem ‘mocked’ used to mean to create, as in the person who had created this statue, but also a new meaning came in, as now in modern times we know ‘mocked’ to mean taking the mick. Shelley infers both of the meanings, as although someone had created it, which was the proletariats, and Ozymandias took the mick and exploited the proletariats as they did all the work that Ozymandias is remembered for. Ozymandias implies that his ‘works’, works of art like the statues, pyramids etc. are the best around. He think highly of himself politically and artistically as Ozymandias calls himself ‘kings of kings ’, but really under the iceberg  all his legacy is of the work that the proletariats have done, but they don’t get remembered as Ozymandias has the hegemony. The traveller in the poem says the statue is a ‘colossal wreck’ the statues fragmentary state indicates the emptiness, long-term, from Ozymandias’s gasconade.

When Ozymandias’s statue was described he was expressed with a ’sneer of cold command’ this shows us that Ozymandias was a tyrannical figure as he ruled from his power and exercised that in a cruel, inhumane, merciless way. He looked down on the artists, workers which were the proletariats and they were marginalised and alienated from prestige in any context. Also, Shelley expressed the class divide by the structure of the poem, the author is a Bourgeoisie and he put a complex sentence in order for the sonnet to sound epic and timeless. Just like Ozymandias he wanted his work to make an impression and last a legacy, which it did as it’s classed as one of his best works. Also, Shelley didn’t even care about writing this poem to make a change, as it was a competition he did it for entertainment and not for change or for citizens to question society.

Shelley was a Romantic, and this meant that they were a sub culture interested in revolutions such as the French and industrial as they overthrew the aristocracy, Karl Marx, a Marxist always wanted communism to happen, but due to the ideological state apparatus that the Bourgeoisie have put in place means that the proletariats are in a false-consciousness until something such as the proletariats lack of political power become so low they need to revolt. Neo- Marxist, Gramsci believed that the proletariats were aware of their exploitation and just stay passive and let it happen as oppression cannot be overcome. Romantics like to rebel a lot as they like to stay true to themselves, so if something contrasts with their views they will rebel against that view. In Shelley’s poem he refers to the nature of the statue and the ‘remains. Round the decay’ this not only links to the nature of the ancient statue eroding, but the fact that Ozymandias’ legacy is decaying and people aren’t remembering him  of the mighty great king he thought he was. As soon as Ozymandias died, as a result of nature, and then life just carried on. In the class relations of the poem, the proletariats get ignored, as throughout the poem they don’t get a mention once. There is no evidence that the proletariats ever ‘changed’ society.

Finally, in the poem social conflicts were ignored, there is no focus on conflict between Ozymandias and his subjects (the proletariats) as they have no voice or movement towards the treatment of Ozymandias. There is a depressing result to oppression as it cannot be overcome, and Neo-Marxists could argue that the proletariats know that and that’s why they don’t do anything. Oppression is endless, and this just reinforces the ideology that the proletariats can’t win, which results in their alienation. Shelley mentions ‘yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things’ this could be a reference to the Bourgeoisie exploiting the proletariats, and the passive movement that the fact the proletariats don’t doing anything about it. Or another meaning could be that Ozymandias works the proletariats so hard for his monuments to be made that the proletariats are exerted and tired but still live to work under Ozymandias.