{"id":538,"date":"2012-10-31T21:10:41","date_gmt":"2012-11-01T01:10:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.briancroxall.net\/lit-tech\/?p=538"},"modified":"2012-10-31T21:10:41","modified_gmt":"2012-11-01T01:10:41","slug":"the-agency-of-looking-debos-argument","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.briancroxall.net\/lit-tech\/2012\/10\/31\/the-agency-of-looking-debos-argument\/","title":{"rendered":"The Agency of Looking: Debo’s Argument"},"content":{"rendered":"

The idea of \u201clooking\u201d as being a key theme throughout Bellocq\u2019s Ophelia<\/em> was something I did not pick on, but could easily see after reading Annette Debo\u2019s article. Ophelia is constantly being looked at by everyone in her surroundings; the community, Bellocq, the men who bid on her, the police, the bawd and many others. She is constantly under a microscope and most of the time when people are looking at her, they are staring in a harsh manner. For instance when taken in by the police, Ophelia states, \u201cI posed for another lense, suffered\/ indecencies I cannot bear to describe. (29). Insinuating that the lens in which the police are looking at her through is harsh and judegmental, but through the word \u201canother\u201d, Ophelia makes it clear she has already experienced this before.<\/p>\n

From the community at large Ophelia is also starred at as people try to figure out who she really is from the ambiguity of her appearance. In the poem August 1911, Ophelia expresses, \u201cWe are no surprise to the locals, though \/ visitors from the North make a great fuss, \/ and many debates occur between them \/ as to whether one can tell, just by looking, \/ our secret\u201d (26). She recognizes the confusion people feel when looking at her for sheis \u00a0a, \u201cblack women\/ with white skin\u201d and \u201cexotic curiosities,\u201d do arise, especially from costumers. (26) Debo argues, \u201cIn Ophelia\u2019s profession, looking is perhaps even more significant than the physicality of sex,\u201d (207). In some cases I would have to agree that being stared at is more humiliating and degrading than the actually work she performs.<\/p>\n

However, there was one part of Debo\u2019s argument that I did not quite understand and I hope we can talk about it in class. The first is when the author states, \u201cShe knows that we are looking, and we are forced to recognize that knowledge, giving her the upper hand in the situation.\u201d (210) When she says \u201cwe\u201d is she referring to the reader, because if so that makes a little more since. Ophelia wants the reader to know that she is intelligent and aware of all those who stare. But if Debo is referring to the customers or all the others that look at Ophelia, I don\u2019t understand exactly where this is apparent in the poems.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The idea of \u201clooking\u201d as being a key theme throughout Bellocq\u2019s Ophelia was something I did not pick on, but could easily see after reading Annette Debo\u2019s article. Ophelia is constantly being looked at by everyone in her surroundings; the community, Bellocq, the men who bid on her, the police, the bawd and many others.<\/p>\n