Museum Of Death Research Paper

Not many things are constant in life, but one thing that will always remain the same is that everything is forever moving, changing, and passing. My introduction to this concept came at age 11 when my father passed away. I couldn’t help but think why did this happen and why couldn’t I stop it from happening? Unfortunately, death is an event that we will never be able to fully understand, but we can sure try. In efforts to shed some light on the subject the “Museum of Death” founded June, 1995, and located on Hollywood Blvd, is a self guided walking tour exploring death and its many forms. The museum houses anything relating to death from body bags to taxidermy. I took great interest in its emphasis on serial killers, specifically Ed Gein.

This museum embraces that fear, puts it on display, and shows that their can be an art to dying. While touring the museum I struggled with feeling completely intrigued but absolutely freaked out. I wound up spending a lot of time reading the letters of a variety of serial killers and accounts of the murders they committed. Being a Psychology major, I found this section and serial killer Ed Gein most interesting.

According to the description provided by James Healy, the museums curator, Edward Theodore Gein, son of Augusta Crafter and George Gein, was Born on August 27,1906. Growing up Ed was largely introverted and showed signs of being effeminate. He was raised in a hyper religious environment and exposed to quite dysfunctional family interactions. His father’s alcoholism and violent outbursts created a huge division amongst the family forcing Ed, Ed’s brother Henry, and Ed’s mother to completely disconnect from him. The mother’s devoutness took divorce out of the equation so eventually they all just co-existed. With dad basically out of the picture Augusta became the sole provider of the house. Ed admired his

Being apart of such a media based society things are usually just taken at face value. Things like buying a CD, renting a movie, or even visiting a library are dying out because we literally have everything we need in the palms of our hands. The irony behind the Museum of Death being the museum I chose was I had to google “cool museums in L.A.” in order to make a decision on where to go. I could have googled Ed Gein, but I would not have received the same experience. I was in awe of how interested and intrigued I was with every aspect of this museum. It really brought life to the deceased almost as if they are walking through the exhibits with you telling you their stories. This sounds terrible given all the horrible things he did, but being there reading his story, and seeing his pictures made me feel bad for him. It made me go beyond face value and think that perhaps given different circumstances in his childhood maybe all he did could have been