The statue of Ozymandias has a few different symbolic meanings. First, it is a physical representation of the might of human political institutions, such as Ozymandias’s empire — this is the symbolic purpose for which Ozymandias himself had the statue built. However, because the statue has fallen into disrepair, it also holds a symbolic meaning that Ozymandias didn't intend: how comparatively fragile human political institutions actually are in the face of both time and nature’s might.

The statue also symbolizes the power of art. Through the sculptor's skill, the statue captures and preserves the "passions" of its subject by stamping them on "lifeless" rock. And the statue also symbolizes the way that art can have power beyond the intentions of even those who commission it. While Ozymandias saw the statue as a way to forever capture his power and magnificence, the poem hints that the statue so thoroughly reveals Ozymandias's haughty cruelty that it also serves to mock him. While Ozymandias's great works have been destroyed and disappeared by nature and time, art in the form of the stature endures, both keeping Ozymandias's memory alive, but not in entirely the ways he would have wanted.

It is also possible to interpret the statue in a third way. Because Ozymandias is clearly a tyrant, the fact that the statue has become a "wreck" hints that the statue might symbolically represent the speaker of the poem's hope and belief that tyranny will always crumble, which also happened to be one of Shelley’s own personal political passions.