Pride In Ozymandias

My pride fell with my fortunes says William Shakespeare while explaining in one of his plays that the character was too prideful and lost everything he worked for. In the poem “Ozymandias” written by Percy Bysshe Shelley the poem explains a statue in the middle of the desert that has broken and no one sees it anymore. The statue was of a very prideful ruler who thought he was very powerful and mighty. The king thought he was better than any other king. The head that sits next to the two legs shows a frown which shows the emotions of the king and how serious he was. In comparison, The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas is about a young man named Edmond Dantes, who was a sailor that was sent to jail because he got a letter from Napoleon

to the public prosecutors dad and the public prosecutor didn't want people to know that was his dad so Villefort, the public prosecutor sent Edmond to jail to protect his name. While in Jail Edmond meets an old man who helps him figure out who wronged him. A couple years later Edmond escapes from jail and creates a fake identity and names himself Count of Monte Cristo. The Count seeks vengeance on the people who did him wrong. Villefort the public prosecutor is one of those people. The Count makes Villefort's life miserable. He gets Villefort to confess to burying a child alive, all of Villefort’s family dies from poison, and he makes his wife kill herself but she also kills his step son. In the end Villefort becomes a mad man because of all the bad things that have happened to him and his family. The Count sees that his plan of vengeance went too far and wants to start over, so he gives away all his money and sails away with the person he falls in love with. In The Count of Monte Cristo and “Ozymandias” both the author and the poet use imagery and detail to build the idea that having too much pride and power can conclude to your own downfall.
Imagery is used many times in The Count of Monte Cristo and “Ozymandias” to describe and help you visualize what is going on in the story.

The Count and many other characters in The Count of Monte Cristo are very prideful and will do anything to not shame their family name, but they will try to shame to other peoples names. For example, when the Count through a party at his house in Auteuil. At the exact same house where Villefort and Madame Danglars had their affair. When the Count was showing everyone the house tour, he took them to the room where Madame Danglar gave birth to the baby and started telling them the exact story of what happened to Villefort and Madame Danglars almost telling everyone it was real and who it happened to. The Count uses great imagery in explaining the room “...look at those somber, blood colored hanging; and those two faded portraits...”(Dumas 260). The Count is using clear details to describe what happened that day when the baby was born and that room doesn’t look like it has changed. While in “Ozymandias” the details the traveler gives describe what the statue looks like and where it is. “Two vast and trunkless legs of stone stand in the desert.”(line 2,3). These details tell you that that the statue only has legs with no upper body attached. Saying that is in the desert also tells you that the statue probably isn’t around anything else and is in the middle of nothing. Both pieces of the text evidence help you image and describes what the object looks

like.
There is a massive amount of detail used in both the book and the poem. The usage of detail helps you know that too much pride can lead to a downfall. In the poem “Ozymandias”, the details used help see what the king looks like and by his look you can tell is very serious and strict. “Whose frown and wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command”(line 4,5). These details can tell us that Ozymandias was a king who was very prideful and knew he was powerful. In The Count of Monte Cristo the details are very different. Many details describe what someone is wearing and how they look or how someone is dies. “Then I rushed at him, sank my knife into his chest and said, I’m Giovanni Bertuccio!”(Dumas 187). This is when Bertuccio kill Villefort and dug up the box Villefort had buried because Bertuccio thought it was a treasure but it was actually the baby. Villefort buried the baby because he didn't want to shame his name by having a baby with a woman he was having an affair with, so he buried the baby alive. The details in the book and poem help you recognize how prideful Villefort and Ozymandias are.
In the poem “Ozymandias” and the book The Count of Monte Cristo the imagery and details used help you understand and grasp how arrogant and prideful both the Count and Ozymandias are. Because of both the characters prides they both have a downfall. The Count feels guilty for what he did to get revenge and wants a fresh start, so he gives all his money away and sails away. Ozymandias was a great king, but after he died nothing he did during his ruling remained and everything fell apart. In conclusion, both thought they very powerful and didn’t think anything could bad could happen to them, but their prides shielded them from the possibility of failure.