Memory, Myth, and The National Mall

Abstract

This essay considers America’s war memorials in Washington, D.C., in terms of the mythically charged conflict between the fathers of the World War II generation and the sons who fought in Vietnam. Young men need to be initiated, to have their innate purpose seen by their elders, and to contribute to a grand, transpersonal cause. But in America their dream collides with a culture that literalizes the old myths of the killing of the children. Images from Greek myth— Ouranos and Chronos—and the biblical Jehovah have long been our models for the father-son relationship. America enacted those conflicts in the betrayal that its soldiers experienced in Vietnam and subsequent wars. World War II veterans were celebrated as heroes, whereas their sons have carried the burden of losers. Their suffering has been compounded by their common experience of betrayal—of having been sacrificed by their own fathers. Yet the fathers are currently experiencing an epidemic of Alzheimer's disease, which I interpret as a metaphor for national denial. We can see these themes—as well as the possibility of authentic cultural healing— expressed in the monuments dedicated to these two generations. The World War II Memorial and the Washington Monument praise the gods of the sky, while the Vietnam Memorial is a model for the public rituals of mourning that America needs—rituals that we can still find in other cultures.