Age and Immortality are common contradictory themes of human nature--as a person gets older, their wish to live forever only grows deeper; they become desperate as they find a way, any way, to be able to defeat death and live generations into the future. Age is inevitable, and immortality is unachievable. It is for this reason that everyone rejects their old age and are eager to embrace the ideas of life past death.
Many people chase power in pursuit of immortality, but many people do not realize time eventually erases everything. Percy Shelley’s “Ozymandias” highlights the power of time as a traveler visits the ruins of Ozymandias, a great king of the past who is now forgotten. All that is left of his legacy is a broken statue that reads, “‘Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!’” (11), in which the speaker then comments, “nothing beside remains” (12). This …show more content…
Even great kings, who pursue immortality by continuing their legacy, are subject to the nondiscriminating forces of death and time. As Ozymandias attempted immortality with power and fortune, some people rely on their family name to last through the generations to make their legacies last past their deaths. Robert Browning’s “My Last Duchess” touches on this subject as the speaker, a Lord who was made jealous by the sweetness of his last wife, states his outrage as he believes she “ranked/ [his] gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name/ with anybody’s gift” (32-34). His former wife’s utter “disrespect” towards his long-lasting family name led him to separate from her, all because she chose to be kind to everyone and simply