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Rhetorical Analysis: The Vietnam Veterans Memorial

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In The Vietnam Veterans Memorial, Maya Lin employs rhetorical devices in order to elucidate, the gross cost of the Vietnam Conflict in U.S. lives.

The minimalist design used in the Vietnam Veterans Memorial emphasizes the overwhelming amount of human lives lost.On the Wall, a small diamond is depicted next to the names of people confirmed dead, if a person is MIA(Missing in Action) they get a small cross next to their name. The cross can easily be carved into a diamond if the person is confirmed dead ,or turned into a circle, a symbol of life, if they are found alive. To this date no circles appear on the Wall. The simplicity of the crosses and diamonds is very morbid because every visitor knows that each small mark, of which there are thousands, …show more content…

Lin described the slight V formed by the branches of Wall, while viewed from above as,”like two hands opening to embrace people." She said she "wanted to describe a journey--a journey which would make you experience death" yet lead away from violence to serenity.”(Linden). The architect behind the monument described the V as open hands because she believed that the monument should help heal the wounds of War. Open hands were chosen for this purpose because they are used for embracing and comforting people.She also describes how wishes the Wall to assuage people. She says that her monument will console not by denying the horrible truth of the war, but by acknowledging it through peace and serenity. Moreover, when viewed from the sky the wall resembles a closing wound.It has sometimes been referred to as “The Black Gash of Shame” by Critics. This symbolizes how as a country this memorial has helped us close our wounds that were opened by the Vietnam War. This emphasis on healing is important because it creates the idea that the Wall is a symbol for healing. By representing mending the Monument comforts those who lost people in the war and closes their metaphorical wounds by giving them some closure about their fallen loved ones. By being a symbol of healing the Wall expresses the large amount of lives lost in the

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She didn 't want the actual memorial to be different from her design because it would take away from her hard work and effort and the memorial wouldn 't look like hers. When Maya Lin was not studying she was taking independent courses at the University of Ohio and spent most of her free time casting bronzes in the school foundry. The memorial was a black cut stone masonry wall that had the names of all 57,661 fallen soldiers carved into it. The wall was in the shape of a V and it was strategically placed so that one side of it pointed to the Lincoln memorial and the other side pointed to the Washington Monument. People voiced their negative opinions about Maya Lin specifically because of the fact that she was of Asian ethnicity.

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Vietnam Veterans Memorial is one of the most controversial architecture work of all times and also one of the most visited memorial in Washington D.C. There was always the expectation that since the war had been controversial, the memorial might or must be also. The memorial is constructed in three remarkable parts: the black wall cutting into the earth, the names inscribed upon the wall, and the statue of the soldiers. This symbol of the memoirs of some of our heroes not only get flooded with excitement but also been courted with several controversies.

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For instance, Confederate monuments would allow generations to see that America isn’t “a place reserved for people who still want to spit our country, but rather a place for education that we can learn from the ugly protraction of our history” (Lanktree). Often, we talk about learning from the past so that the same mistakes won’t occur in the future. This specifically can be represented through these monuments; by having a symbol of the past where racism occurred, it serves as a reminder of what discrimination can do when one side is filled with bigotry. Having a place where one can learn about the effects of someone’s wrongdoings can allow today’s people to decide for themselves the future they want to create. Additionally, the author of the article Keep Confederate monuments, but put their horrific history on stage describes how Americans have been “willfully blind” about racial justice and that the statues could be used as reminders of the “catastrophic consequences” (Cose).

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