Category: Student posts

In Annette Debo’s literary analysis of Bellocq’s Ophelia, she asserts that it is Ophelia’s “job to become an actor in [the costumer’s] desires.” This notion not only applies to Ophelia in her sex work, but it also applies to her as a subject of photography and in every day life.

Ophelia constantly has to act for the men that pay for her services, morphing to please a costumer’s desires. In the poem Vignette, Trethewey draws a parallel between Ophelia’s profession as a sex worker and that of a circus performer. She states, “Picture her face now as she realizes/that it must have been harder every year,/that the contortionist too, must have ached/ each night in his tent” (Trethewey 47). Ophelia is constantly putting on a show. She contorts into someone she isn’t in order to please her customer, similar to how an entertainer must please a crowd. Concealing her true identity becomes tiresome and degrading, causing Ophelia to come out of her shell at the end of the novel.

In addition to the acting she performs in prostitution, Ophelia must act in order to satisfy Bellocq’s photographical demands. She constantly feels uncomfortable in front of the camera, but puts on a show to make Bellocq believe she is “right for the camera” (Trethewey 42). However, through access to her personal diary, the reader knows that to Ophelia, “all of it [is] contrived” (Trethewey 41). Ophelia is constantly forced to become someone she is not in order to survive in the world. For a majority of the novel, Ophelia is stuck inside the frame of what others would like her to be.

Lastly, even on the streets Ophelia is constantly changing herself in order to gain the acceptance of others. In a letter home, Ophelia writes, “Do I deceive/ anyone? Were they to see my hands, brown/ as your dear face, they’d know I’m not quite/ what I pretend to be” (Trethewey 7). Ophelia feels that she must change her physical appearance in order to be accepted in the world. She is constantly trying to gain the approval of those around her and feels like she is always being looked at.

Debo suggests that Ophelia is always acting in her pursuit to please sex workers, however, I believe acting is a centralized aspect of Ophelia’s life. Whether it is trying to impress a customer, posing for a photo, or simply walking down the street, Ophelia is never content in her own skin. She is always acting to meet the expectations of others, and loses part of herself in this process.

In Resurrecting Still Lives, Debo states that working in the brothel “is as much bout theatricality as it is about sex”(Debo 207). Her points center on the abstraction of “looking”, as if it is something more than the verb itself. As she puts it, looking “is layered, circular, and reflexive”, and she’s right, looking can be ambiguous. I can understand the ambiguity of looking when two teenagers are trying to decipher what the other is thinking, or the look your crush gives you when they pass by in an instance, but in a brothel; humans act more like animals, disregarding everything but physical appeal.

A brothel is a place of exchange, specifically, money for pleasure (which can vary among people). The men that go to a brothel already have a predetermined outlook on the women they are going to hire and the things they are going to do. The majority of encounters are emotionless and selfish. Meaning, the men that go to a brothel have to satisfy an inner need. The same mindset is applied to the women; they are out to get money. However, looking is an unselfish act in a brothel; it’s a way to evaluate the women apart from their race, personality, or other characteristics and only for their pure physical attraction, not minding your own physical appeal. Money levels the playing field because men don’t have to rely on their own characteristics to get the women they want, and they even buy into a more exclusive pool of women. Countess calls Ophelia “African Violet for the promise of that wild continent hidden beneath my white skin” and this is the exact reason why men may prefer the “very white skinned black woman” (Trethewey 13, 6). The exotic African appeal drives the men to seek these women for the promise of the hypersexual, good in bed characteristics, but all these “positives” in the brothel melt away on the street where she can’t find an office job. The benefits do not outweigh the disadvantages for Ophelia because she is ambitious.

In her last blog post, Soloff vividly explains the general limitations and detriments of photography by referring to Trethewey’s, “Bellocq’s Ophelia.” She mentions that photography can only paint a single moment, instead of surrounding details, and that photography cannot portray pictures and emotions accurately. Although these observations are indeed detrimental, there are also some benefits to these limitations that apply to Ophelia’s situation. Ophelia uses these restrictions of photography to control her appearance and identity even in the conditions of subjection in which she finds herself. She also empowers herself with this control of appearance as an apprentice photographer.

The level of Ophelia’s control is first observed in her relationship with Constance and her mother. When Ophelia writes to Constance about the “lewdness” of her photographic experience at the police station, she immediately decides to send “this picture of her good work/,” one “modest portrait for [her] mother.” She makes it clear to Constance and her mother that they “will not see those [lewd] photographs,” because the photographs expose the accurate truth about Ophelia’s life experiences (Trethewey 29). By sending a “modest portrait,” and hiding the lewd photograph, Ophelia chooses to mask the reality of suffering from the external view of Constance or her mother. The modest portrait provides an inaccurate description of her conditions, but is beneficial to Ophelia because she can choose the appearances that she wants people to see. In essence, she is in control of how she is represented in each photograph, even though she is auctioned like a slave to white men.

In addition, Ophelia mentions that she “knows how not to be exposed,” when in front of the camera because this knowledge retains her sense of power (Trethewey 42). Knowing how to avoid exposure influences the appearance of her posture and makes her invulnerable to the judgments of men who look at her. Her true identity as a mulatto is hidden from the portraits, but she controls herself so that she is acknowledged as the white woman she thinks she is. This obscured appearance of the photographs helps her benefit personally because she is portraying how she views herself to the outside.

Ophelia also benefits from the control she gains as a photographer herself. In her diary titled “Disclosure,” she enjoys the “power/ [she] finds in transforming what is real—a room/ flushed with light, calculated disarray” (Trethewey 44). The room that is referenced is disorganized in reality, but becomes an object of wonder because of Ophelia’s influence and power to transform an ordinary room to an object of significance. When she is behind the camera as a photographer, she has control over what specimens to include within the frame of her lens. She also has the power to portray the picture in whatever manner she desires. This freedom of desire benefits her because she controls the appearance of the picture and she enjoys it.

Although photography inaccurately portrays Ophelia’s appearance and true identity, she is able to gain some control over her life through her choices and knowledge. This incorrect portrayal of appearance and identity serves as a benefit to her because she is satisfied and content by them.

Christian Sanchez states that Bellocq’s Ophelia is a story of regret led by desire for money. I argue that money does not fully lead Ophelia to prostitution but rather she made a conscious, thought-out decision to join the brothel to escape her violent past.

Trethewey stresses Ophelia’s sophisticated nature throughout the collection of poems, whether it is through language or structure. Ophelia does not try to justify her decision; she merely states it was necessary in order to survive. Ophelia makes this commitment because she wants the survival necessities a life of prostitution would give her if she escaped her current, violent life. She grows up in a life of rape and abuse, and escaping to the brothel would in turn provide her with a roof, food, and care. Having thought-out this decision, Ophelia writes to her friend, Constance, “I alone / have made this choice” (Trethewey 15). Ophelia tells her friend to not worry about her as she has had ample time to think about her decision. Money only plays a minor role in her choice to work in a brothel. The constant flashbacks of her childhood where they make her feel as she is “in the dream where [she has] run, again, / into the tobacco barn at the back end / of the plantation […] The man who comes wears a carnival mask, / and [she is] the grinning nigger  / on whose tongue he places a shiny coin” (23). Ophelia’s nightmares reveal her abusive past, not her poverty. This leads me to believe she ran to the brothel because she wanted to escape her abusive life, not to earn money. I believe that Sanchez’s statement “Ophelia’s turn to prostitution is not only based on her limited options, but also on the fact of the universal need for money” is false (Sanchez). I agree that Ophelia needs money, just as anyone does, but I do not think that it was her reason to turn to prostitution. If Sanchez’s claim were the case, I do not believe Ophelia would choose to leave the brothel.

Another example why I believe money did not drive Ophelia’s decision is seen in her choice to leave the brothel at the end of the story. Ophelia tells Constance her “purse already swells” just after a few days of work, so why would she leave (15)? I argue that she leaves because she knows her life will get harder and harder the longer she stays here. The contortionist Ophelia mentions in the Vignette represents life in the brothel: “the contortionist in a sideshow—how / he could make himself small, fit / into cramped spaces, his lungs / barely expanding with each tiny breath. / She thinks of her own shallow breaths” (47). Her life in the brothel resembles the act of a contortionist, bending smaller and smaller with less and less breath, slowly suffocating until immobilization. Her life has become this act of control, which is why she decides to leave. Ophelia knows if she continues to work at the brothel she will die. This same type of educated decision is what drove her to the brothel in the first place. This thinking shows that survival instinct drives Ophelia, not money.

The things you think when you are in the privacy of your own mind and the things you tell other people are both very different things. For instance, if the guy you have a thing for winkes at you at a party, you’re definitely going to tell your friends it happened, but you might not admit how happy it made you in that moment.

The same thing goes for Ophelia. I mean, obviously she doesn’t have a thing for any of the guys at the brothel and she definitely didn’t run into him at a party, but the main idea stays the same. In Ophelia’s letters to Constance, she writes about the things that happen to her and yes, sometimes she discloses her feelings, but she never writes the way she does in her diary in the second part of the book.

What I’d really like to focus on, are the last few months of Ophelia’s stay at the brothel and her departure from it. I believe that the biggest turn for Ophelia was in January of 1912, when she ventures out to take photographs with the Kodak she saved up for. She’s trying to take a picture of a bird, however, the bird flies away. “As my shutter fell/he lifted in flight, a vivid blur above/the clutter just beyond the hedge—garbage/rats licking the insides of broken eggs.” (Tretheway44) The redbird flying off, not sitting still for the camera, reminds me of Ophelia, posing for photographs. I know that might sound backwards, but as she poses for Bellocq, she feels trapped. She says “I fade again into someone I’m not,” (Tretheway 40) meaning that she feels captured in somebody else, which she is being forced into by Bellocq. Escaping, flying away like the bird, is something she wants to do herself. The bird blurs away, leaving an unsightly sight behind, which is exactly what Ophelia wants to do. Plus, in her February 1912 diary entry, she once again paints her surroundings negatively, calling the city “dull” and “gray” with “weathered ships docked at the quay, rats/dozing in the hull, drizzle slicking dark stones/of the street.” (Tretheway 45) She obviously dislikes where she currently is.

Now, in her last letter to Constance before the postcard, Ophelia writes that she longs to travel. She writes “I lost/myself, for a moment, and found/upon waking from my daydream, the book/clutched to my chest, and the globe/set in motion, spinning beneath my hand.” (Tretheway 32) While she doesn’t mention any of the negatives about her living space, she does mention wanting to leave.

And finally, in her last diary entry, she finally realizes that she needs to get out of there. By “[seeing] only [her] own clear eye,” (Tretheway 46) she realizes what she really wants, and gets out of there. However, in her letter to Constance, she never reveals what made her flee from the brothel and her life, she just tells her that she’s moving on. She writes that the changing of winter to spring reminds her of herself, how she does not fit her skin anymore, much like the trees who blossom again. But her revelation, her special moment, her wink, she keeps for herself.

In Natasha Trethewey’s Bellocq’s Ophelia, Ophelia explains how she has “run” away from being raped. I think she not only struggled to run away from being raped she also struggled to run away from her ethnic identity. “[…] I’m not quite what I pretend to be. I walk these streets a white woman, or so I think, until I catch the eyes of some upon me, and I must lower mine, a negress again” (Trethewey, 7). Deep inside, Ophelia identifies herself to be a black woman but she was raised in a way to pretend to be white.

She was born to a white father and a black mother. Ophelia compares prostitution and her childhood education, and does not find the both to be dissimilar. “It troubles me to think that I am suited for this work-spectacle and fetish- a pale odalisque. But then I recall my earliest training-childhood-how my mother taught me to curtsy and be still so that I might please a white man, my father” (Trethewey, 20). She has spent her childhood trying to please her father, a white man and now she works in a brother trying to please other white men.

Race is a social construct based merely on the segregation of various ethnicities and not on skin. Due to the rarity of miscegenation in the early 20th century, Ophelia is somewhat unique. Even though, Ophelia has a white skin and has the manner of a white woman, she is socially identified as a black woman. She consumes arsenic tablets to appear as white as possible. “Later, I took arsenic-tablets I swallowed to keep me fair, bleached white as stone” (Trethewey, 20). Due to her past, she strives to become someone else and free herself from her memory. “I want freedom from memory. I could then be somebody else, born again, free in the white space of forgetting” (Trethewey, 24). Ophelia wants to be born as someone else. I think she is referring to being born as a white person. Being a white person, she wouldn’t have to suffer from the racial distinction she has to suffer from.

Drawing inspiration from the portraits taken by E.J. Belloq, Natasha Trethewey’s Bellocq’s Ophelia is the imagined life of one of these young prostitutes living in New Orleans in 1912. In the collection, Trethewey pictures Ophelia as interracial woman, one who autonomously chose to embark on the life of a prostitute as a means for survival. Throughout the collection, there is a constant appearance of the word “white.” The repetition of the word “white” dramatizes Ophelia’s yearning to be viewed by society as a “white” woman and ultimately gain the social class status assigned to Caucasians. I agree that by the context in which “white” is incorporated throughout the collection adequately represents Ophelia’s obsession to be physically viewed not only as white, but also apart of the white class.

In the poem Letter Home, Ophelia speaks about her life four weeks after leaving home and trying to “secure some modest position” (Trethewey 7) in the world. Ophelia goes on to say, “I walk these streets a white woman” (Trethewey 7). In other words, Ophelia pretends to be white because she believes it to be her only chance to secure a job outside of the brothels. Her “hands covered with the lace gloves” (Trethewey 7) and “dress[es] each day in [her] best” give off the impression to the employers that she is of white class. In addition, in the poem March 1911, Ophelia begins the poem by explaining in her letter why she is suited to be a prostitute. Ophelia remarks that because “her mother taught [her] to curtsy and be still so that [she] might please a white man, my father” (Trethewey 20), she can be successful in prostitution. This social behavior alludes to the idea that Ophelia’s mother raised her to represent the white class during the time that white women were perceived as both polite and etiquette. Ophelia explains in her letter that she takes “arsenic-tablets [she] swallowed to keep [her] fair, bleached white as stone” (Trethewey 20). In other words, Ophelia subjects herself to swallowing pills in order to make her appear visibly whiter so that she is more desired by the customers. Ophelia’s obsession is further proven when she writes about the “secret” of “black women with white skin” (Trethewey 26). In August 1911, she writes “the visitors from the North make a great fuss…just by looking, our secret. The vilest among them say, I can always smell a nigger” (Trethewey 26). In this instance, Ophelia refers to her white-black skin as a ‘secret’ to the visitors. In other words, Ophelia is afraid of the non-regular customers to discover that she is black because of her obsession with being perceived as white.

Is Ophelia’s obsession with being a white women and a part of the white class understandable? Living in 1912, there were a multitude of racial outbursts across America. Is it possible that Ophelia’s attempt to appear more white is another mechanism for survival similar to prostitution?

In Bellocq’s Ophelia the technology of photography can provide both benefits and limitations. Photography benefits Ophelia, as it is her hobby, passion and escape. She enjoys “the camera’s way of capturing/the sparkle of plain dust floating on air” (Trethewey 27). Ophelia finds that photography is able to capture something beautiful in the mundane. Even in a dull scene, the camera can produce a photograph that glistens. Ophelia comes to recognize that photography cannot only make the ordinary exciting, but can also capture someone to remember. Ophelia, in a letter to Constance, asks Constance if she can “take [her] photograph, fix/an image of [her] for my table/to accompany what is left in [her] head” (Trethewey 30). Here, photography has the ability to let the mind retain more information. Taking Constance’s photograph and placing it in her home, can remind Ophelia of her friend and all the memories that belong with her. Without the photograph, the memories of Constance my unfortunately fade. This technology also benefits Ophelia by giving her happiness and control. Ophelia states that she “thrills the magic of [photography]” (Trethewey 43).  She finds such joy in transforming a living image into something that is tangible. She is able to manipulate what goes in the frame and can produce an image that she thinks is beautiful. Ophelia exclaims, “what power/i find in transforming what is real” (Trethewey 44). Ophelia, instead of being controlled by the prostitution house, has control and power over the photography.  She can choose who and what to photograph and alter the photograph into any way she likes.

However, photography has its detriments as well. Ophelia claims that she has “learned the camera well-the danger/of it, the half-truths it can tell” (Trethewey 30). Photography can only capture a moment in time, and leave out most details of a situation. It can paint a picture of a scene, but not portray it accurately. It can show an emotion, but without words and actions, the emotion can easily be misconstrued and faked. Ophelia looks at “what [Bellocq] can see through his lens/and what he cannot…what the camera misses”(Trethewey 43). Here, the readers are able to see that photography is limited. It can pick out a specific object, person, or scene to focus on, but it will never be able to capture its entire essence. Some part will be left out of the lens, and the viewer of the photograph has a skewed view. The camera conveys falsified images and has to leave out important details. Although photography has its benefits, one has to be careful of its limitations.

In Natasha Tretheway’s Belloq’s Ophelia, a prostitute from New Orleans’s red light district writes letters and diary entries about her life.  While most assume that prostitutes are unintelligent and uneducated, Ophelia’s writing style is sophisticated and poised. In class today, I found it very interesting when Natasha Tretheway said “people aren’t always the sum of their circumstances”. This comment struck me as important because Ophelia’s thoughts and behavior in the poems contradict common stereotypes that many people have about prostitutes.

For example, Ophelia is very interested in educating herself and learning about the world. In a letter Ophelia exclaims, “Do you remember that I kept/your copy of American Highways/and Byways for months, reading it,/Imagine, then, my surprise at finding/that the Countess keeps a library here,/ in the brothel!” (Tretheway 32). Ophelia appears to be an avid reader and is very excited by the prospect of having a library in the brothel. While most people assume that a prostitute would have no interest in reading, Ophelia enjoys learning and realizes the importance of educating herself.  Tretheway portrays Ophelia as having a thirst for learning in order to show that one cannot judge another’s character based solely on his or her circumstance.

Ophelila’s typical behavior is also very different from that of the stereotypical prostitute. In another letter, Ophelia explains that since the other girls in the house walk around in their underwear, “They tease me, but gently,/for my proper clothes and the quiet way I take my tea.” (Tretheway 17). Ophelia is different from the other girls in the brothel as she dresses modestly and keeps to herself. While the other girls exhibit the stereotype that prostitutes behave and dress inappropriately during the day, Ophelia make an effort to display proper etiquette.  Again, Tretheway uses Ophelia’s behavior to show that Ophelia is not defined by her line of work or living situation.

Ophelia is a clear example of someone who is “not the sum of her circumstance”. We cannot pass judgments about her just because she is a prostitute that lives in a brothel, as her character certainly does not reflect her unfortunate situation. Through these poems, Tretheway urges us to realize that people are not always what they seem from the outside looking in.

Although, as Mariah emphasizes, Natasha Tretheway definitely mentions the limitations of cameras, I feel that Tretheway also provides an equal amount of enthusiasm, for not only the contributions to society that the camera has made, but also its power as a medium of communication.

A camera, in reality has changed our world. Just like the phone connected us to distant lands, the invention of the camera and its product the photograph, have allowed us to connect to our past. Through the camera and photographs, in the future there is no doubt that we will feel much closer to our past. As we go forward, although we may never be able to travel back in time, the past will continue to grow closer and closer to us with the never ending advances in technology. Tretheway’s work is a perfect example of connecting to the past with something as simple yet at the same time as powerful as a photograph.

Despite this, the limitations that come with a photograph is definitely a theme in the novel, for as Ophelia states, “I look at what he can see through the lens, and what he cannot,” in reference to Bellocq as a photographer (43). The answers are not all there. Yet a photograph can also provide the slightest avenue into the unseen, such as a simple look in a woman’s eyes which became Tretheway’s inspiration for Bellocq’s Ophelia. Tretheway mentioned that in the past, photographers waited until the decisive moment to take the picture. This moment would occur when the person who was posing for the photograph mind drifted and they forgot why they were there. This definitely shows the power of the camera as a medium of communication, for although it may not be able to capture the entire unseen picture, it can capture a hint or clue at the unseen side which can then help us to unravel the puzzle concerning the mystery of their life.

Ophelia’s purchase of a camera and her marvel at the “camera’s way of capturing the sparkle of plain dust” also brings up a very interesting perspective (Tretheway, 27). It seems that Tretheway is in fact trying to show us two sides of the camera. The first side is that of the unseen, the fact that Ophelia may look like a pretty lady on the outside, but what is really going on inside may not be obvious, except through minute details. The second side is almost the opposite. It is that the camera can capture something as insignificant as “plain dust,” and make it into something beautiful that “sparkles” (27). It seems that Ophelia could be hoping that the concept of learning could transform her, a girl that is supposed to be someone simpleminded who does not use sophisticated language, into something beautiful, despite her circumstances. The camera is not limiting in this way either, for it does not limit the simple people to be simple. Instead Ophelia’s transformations and her self-discovery are obvious as the story progresses