In poetry and literature, irony is used as a rhetorical or literary technique to elaborate on what something appears to be on the surface in contrast to what it actually is. In the text, situational irony is used when the traveller speaks of the king's words engraved on the pedestal. Ozymandias, the king, is proud of his amazing works and of all he constructed in his lifetime, believing that would make him mighty for all time. However, nothing remains around the pedestal; the desert's sands have engulfed all of his colossal works. Therefore, it is the contradiction between what is boasted (that is, the amazing constructions) versus what is actually there (a large stretch of sand and decay) that constitutes the irony in the passage.
