I didn't even have to read two paragraphs into the UVA site on the Statue of Liberty to come across the name Pocahontas. Oh, the memories it brought back, as well as the spelling challenges. (A few weeks and a paper later and I STILL want to spell Pocahontas Pocohontas. Thank goodness for spell check, I guess.) Of course, I immediately jumped back a year to one of our first AmCon dense facts: Pocahontas. In that context, Pocahontas represented the ideal "native female," one who displayed a set of characteristics that were wild, yet accustomed to the order and control of European influence. She represented something more than herself. Rather, she embodied the colonizing ideas of striking out into the wilderness, naive as a virgin, to the land, yet able to maintain a control over the natural environment. Instead of representing Native American women as realistic historical figures, Pocahontas became an iconic image, manipulated and artistically formed as a symbol of "seamless" merging of European culture onto the New World landscape.
I began thinking about the Statue of Liberty in relation to Pocahontas, and the manner in which female images have been used to represent the ideals of a group. Apparently, male symbolic figures are often given active roles in political cartoons and statues, whereas female figures stand still. I had never considered this before, but upon reading it, I find the statement to have value. Indeed, the Statue of Liberty is a solid, unmoving figure in the American Consciousness. Rarely have I seen a depiction of a moving Lady Liberty. So while the Statue of Liberty isn't modeled after a true historical figure like Pocahontas, her status as a statue somewhat limits her representation of actual people. Rather, she becomes, by default a representation not of actions or behaviors but of unmoving ideals which are difficult to quantify, but easier to apply to a nation. Liberty, Freedom, Autonomy, Metamorphosis...such are the ideals which come to mind when thinking of her. Yet such large, expansive concepts leave something to be desired in the way of a symbol for our nation. Millions of Immigrants have felt the sting of life in America, when it didn't live up to the expectations of such words as "Freedom." Perhaps an Uncle Sam is a better representation of America and what it means to come here, as he at least participates in cartoons and can alter based upon situations.
Lady Liberty, however, does have a permanence and prominence that other figures do not. Regardless of her status as a manipulated version of the female form, made to represent a set of ideals that not everyone finds in America, the fact remains that she is visual, strongly rooted, and built to last- both physically and in the American consciousness. And there is certainly something to be said about that. But I won't say it here.
Good for you: making these fine connections.
ReplyDeleteYou are right, of course, about the permanence and prominence that a 300+ foot statue has. Nonetheless, like Pocahontas Lady Liberty does have a variety of interpretations projected upon her. This we see in the ways she is represented in political cartoons over the decades.
LDL