preview

Death Be Not Proud And Ozymandias Essay

Decent Essays

The concept of what happens after someone dies is a controversial topic between many religions, cultures, races, etc. When a person within Muslim culture passes on, their death is deemed as an act of moving from one world to another. Death within Hinduism has a strong spiritual aspect behind it. They whole heartily trust that souls are rebirthed and reincarnated. Similarly, people have existing views about life after death. In the poems, “Death be not Proud,” by John Donne and “Ozymandias,” by Percy Shelley, one can see that similarly vague comparisons can be drawn about arrogance and power but the only relative comparison is death itself, therefore, what happens beyond death is a matter of opinion between authors. John Donne mocks the idea that death is the termination of life. His idea of death is that it is not the end, “one short sleep past, we wake eternally” (Donne 13). He alludes to death as being arrogant, and the strongest enemy to defeat. After a person is deceased, they enter into their afterlife. Donne often references death being more like hibernation than the end of existence. Therefore, his whole perception of death is it should not be feared and a persons soul is taken to their afterlife where they will live eternally. …show more content…

His poem is based on the idea, no matter how great a person is death is inevitable. He references the decay and arrogance of Ozymandias. Ozymandias had grand ideas about his power and called himself the “king of kings.” Even though, his statue is visible to the human eye, “two vast and trucless legs of stone/stand in the desert” (Shelley 2-3) his spirit is forgotten. This could be further proven by the fall of the Roman Empire. After the death of Alexander the Great, the Roman Empire was brought down. The meaning of which death is the

Get Access