Memorialism In Vietnam

To memorialize is to preserve the memory or commemorate something. You can honor moments of outstanding accomplishment, or pay tribute to great sacrifices. It is almost human nature to memorialize things. There are thousands of monuments and museums around the world that commemorate various events and people from Martin Luther King, Jr. to the Vietnam War. Although it seems simple to memorialize these things, there are many factors to be considered in creating a monument to remember them. Some elements to recognize include the location, the size and design, and the meaning of the monument.

First of all, the location of a monument is an extremely important factor when considering how to memorialize a person or experience. For example, many groups choose to build the statue of a respected person in that person 's hometown. For other monuments, however, there is no clear reason as to why they are where they are. The Lincoln Memorial is a great example of this, because "The site of the Lincoln Memorial...did not even

Will it depict a person, or simply have touching words represented on the surface? Or possibly both? This is when it becomes necessary to think deeply about what is being memorialized and what emotion is to be conveyed. In the case of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, the artist plainly chose to have a wall with the 57,000 names of those missing and killed in the Vietnam War. Although this monument is not an ambitiously detailed statue, the meaning is communicated. According to the designer of the monument, "...the ability of a name to bring back every single memory you have of that person is far more realistic and specific and much more comprehensive than a still photograph." (Lin). She suggests that the importance of the names was more momentous than the features of the wall. Obviously the meaning of a tribute can be conveyed without many details being put into