ENCW 205: Art & Identity in New Orleans

Bellocq’s Ophelia was a beautiful yet grim portrayal of the life of a sex worker. There are many preconceived notions of sex workers in society, and I believe many of these notions are through the eyes of men that have been passed. Throughout the poems in Bellocq’s Ophelia, we see how Ophelia is constantly objectified. […]

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From the very beginning of the book, this collection of poetry was tackling complex emotions. A woman, who feels like she is in a cage sometimes. Her clients do not want a personal relationship with her. They want her to not speak but just deliver. But this black woman with light skin also feels validated […]

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Bellocq’s Ophelia recounts the fictional tale of Ophelia, a sex worker in the early 1900’s. Ophelia is not only objectified because of her job but because she is a light-skinned black woman. She is seen as one of the “exotic curiosities” (pg. 26) of the brothel for this reason. The men who come to gawk and […]

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In the poem “Countess P-’s Advice for New Girls,” from Natasha Trethewey’s Berlocq’s Ophelia, the head countess of the brothel gives recommendations to girls new to the brothel on how they should act. The girls are told to empty their thoughts, let the man’s gaze animate them before they move, and “wait to be asked […]

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There, on the pendent boughs her coronet weeds Clambering to hang, an envious sliver broke; When down her weedy trophies and herself Fell in the weeping brook. Her clothes spread wide, And, mermaid-like, awhile they bore her up; Which time she chanted snatches of old tunes, As one incapable of her own distress, Or like […]

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