Dbq Monument And Memorial Analysis

Monuments and memorials are made to immortalize an important person or event. There are many factors that go into the making of a successful memorial or monument, but what factors should be more important? Even though people believe that the design of the monument should be considered the most important factor because it can alter the purpose of the monument, the most important factors are the meaning because it gives the monument a purpose, and the location because it can degrade the monument 's meaning.

The meaning of a monument or memorial can contribute greatly to its purpose. Before she read the requirements for the design of the monument Maya Lin knew she wanted to include the names of the deceased since they carried a deeper meaning,

In addition to the meaning of a memorial being an important factor, the location also has a big importance. While discussing the controversies brought with the news of the location of the Holocaust museum Christine Musser said, ”the Holocaust would be built in the United States, who did little to stop the Holocaust from occurring ” (Source E). All around Jewish and non-Jewish people were angered by the news. People thought it was offensive that a country who did so little to prevent the cruel events that happened during the Holocaust was going to be the one to memorialize it. The museum was meant to be a place of remembrance, but since it was going to be built on the national mall people saw it only as a symbol of disrespect to the Jewish community. The location was something people found hard to overlook and it caused them to neglect the meaning of the museum. Lawrence Downes expressed his opinion on the Crazy Horse Memorial, “It was bad enough that white men drove the Sioux from the hills they still hold sacred; did they have to carve faces all over them too?” (Source C). The Crazy Horse Memorial is located in the same area as Mt. Rushmore which is a bit ironic considering that it was made to honor Native Americans. Both memorials being in the same location serves as a slap in the face to Native Americans since Mt. Rushmore is built on land that was once theirs. Mt. Rushmore interferes with the efforts to honor Native Americans because it is a more popular site that the Crazy Horse monument is forced to compete