Debbie Carmona
Professor Catherine Perry
English 2100 Argumentative Essay
December 19, 2022
Memorials are a staple no matter where you go. Every country, state, and city has memorials spread throughout. It’s a tool we use to commemorate an important event or people that made an influence in society. We have all passed by a memorial at least once in our lives. It could range from a statue, to a whole museum to honor a story or people who’ve made an impact. It’s what we use to teach our youth about the important events that have happened and can carry on that knowledge into the future. Though memorials are used to respect and showcase, it isn’t always successful at demonstrating it. A successful memorial has different aspects to it that many currently don’t have. Having a memorial that you can just walk by and think nothing of, has no importance to it. It takes away from the situation and it becomes forgotten. The whole reason for the memorial being there goes out the window. New tactics have to be adopted in order to capture peoples’ attention and honor for the events that occurred.
Telling a story is important for a successful memorial. Many memorials consist of statues or weird structured monuments that have a plaque explaining why it’s there. That doesn’t tell a story. It’s a quick and easy way to show respect to someone without emphasizing the importance of them. The death of Ruby Bader Ginsburg sparked a debate on how they should honor such an influential person. People instantly thought of a statue, but many hesitated with that idea. It was felt that bringing “forward history doesn’t always fit in a statue” (Farber 2020). Creating an experience for people would add a layer that a statue never will. Making a statue interesting is difficult. It isn’t compelling in any way. Making a creative structure or experience in general would pull people in and show the proper respect towards someone like Ruby Bader Ginsburg. An abstract idea would “raise questions that are thought provoking” (Alemani 2020). This makes the memorial a more stimulating experience and has people engaged wanting more. By making it more appealing, people would be drawn in to learn about the memorial and have more knowledge on it. This reminds me of my memorial proposal on the Chernobyl disaster. That horrific event led to the death of many people due to exposure to radiation. The people who have survived had to deal with the long term effects and so did they’re children. They have no memorial that tells their story. The only memorial they have is located in Berlin, Germany and it’s just a pillar with a weird looking rectangular rock on top of it. That doesn’t properly show people the horrors that the victims of Chernobyl went through. I proposed a museum to be built. This museum would be full of the actual story of Chernobyl and the aftermath of it. People would be able to actually learn and they would be more likely to go to a museum than a random rock in the middle of Berlin. A museum has a certain ambiance that makes people want to be there and soak up all the knowledge.
Many of us believe that important, memorable things should have a memorial. People who have done something historic or significantly positive. Events that were tragic or brought unity. Not racist memorials that honors confederates and slave holders from the 1800s. Memorializing people who wanted to bring chaos and harm to people don’t deserve to be honored. Lots of controversy spiraled due to the heavy debate if the statues of Conservative people should be torn down or left standing. The southeast of the United States is full of those statues, yet they have the largest population of African Americans in the country. A history professor at the University of Maryland, Anne Sarah Rubin, has stated, “To leave them as they are is in many cases a giant middle finger to the communities in which they sit.” Their ancestors were the victims of those people that are being honored. Historians believe that these monuments are important to history and should be preserved to show the appalling things that happened in the past. The three options that became present were keeping up the monument and adding context, relocating them to a museum, or moving it elsewhere. As long as the monument gets taken down and moved somewhere else, peace would settle into these communities. A memorial should bring people together, not cause division.
The location of a memorial is key to its success. Having the memorial in a rural area would make it secluded and not many people would be willing to visit it. Having it in a big city is a huge difference. A city like New York City is full of millions of people that live there and millions of others that visit every single year. New York is a “world city” (Schama 2011). New York is always buzzing with people and it is a strategic location to place memorials. One of the most famous memorials is located in New York City which is the One World Trade Center. It’s a beautiful site that even tourists visit. It consists of a big fountain that sinks down maybe thirty feet (personal estimation). Surrounding the fountain are the names of the victims. Not only can you visit the fountain, but right next to it is also a building that you can go inside and have a visual experience. This place is “highly controlled experience” due to having “to go through layers of security and stand on numerous lines since only so many can go in at once” (Hirsch 2013). The large number of people going shows how successful it is. People would overall have the same, heartfelt experience compared to just staring at a random monument in a secluded place.
Memorials bring tribute to all that has been lost. Beautiful things come from them no matter what perspective we look at it from. There are changes that we can make to have as many people connect and discover new concepts that they haven’t before. These changes will take memorials to a whole new level. The memorials that we once knew, will be gone.
Works Cited Page
Budds, Diana. “How Do We Create an RBG Memorial That Isn’t Terrible?” Curbed, Curbed, 22 Sept. 2020, www.curbed.com/2020/09/ruth-bader-ginsburg-statue-brooklyn-cuomo.html.
Hirsch, Alison. “Architects’ Dilemma on Memorials: Forget and Heal, or Confront and Grieve.” USC News, 30 June 2014, news.usc.edu/54821/architects-dilemma-on-memorials-forget-and-heal-or-confront-and-grieve/.
Schama, Simon. “Op-Ed: What Makes A Successful Memorial.” NPR, NPR, 12 Sept. 2011, www.npr.org/2011/09/12/140404983/op-ed-what-makes-a-successful-memorial.
Grinberg, Emmanuela. “What Can Communities Do with Confederate Monuments? Here are 3 Options.” CNN, June 30, 2017, What can communities do with Confederate monuments? Here are 3 options | CNN