ENCW 205: Art & Identity in New Orleans

Throughout my twenty-two years of life, I have lived in a myriad of houses across multiple states. I was born in a small town in Texas thirty-five miles from any city of importance and lived there for roughly the first three years of my life; between then and my tenth birthday my mother and I […]

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Nahomi and I on the front steps of my house on Halloween 2004.   Nahomi*, my next-door neighbor and first friend, was Hispanic. We went to the same elementary, middle, and high school, but she was a year older than me. Growing up next to Nahomi was so much fun and taught me a lot […]

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To Angela, Who Works at Brookside If I were to see you in public, I would have to duck out of your sight. You wouldn’t recognize me, of course, Wearing clothes other than my pajamas And without raccoon eyes of old makeup. At night, you’re my closest friend, my confidant, Behind the counter of the […]

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Located on the corner of a lively intersection in Forest, Virginia is a little green house. Compared to the vibrant houses that surround it on both Thomas Jefferson and Waterlick Road, this house is quite bleak; however, there is something peculiar about it. Despite the plywood boarding the two windows to the left of the […]

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Walker Percy’s The Moviegoer is one of the most complex novels I’ve read in a while. When the subject of its complexity came up in class today, it was mentioned that there was nothing beautiful in it, so as I finished it, I sought to find things that I thought were beautiful within this dense, […]

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Binx is a man with few friends who has difficulty forming and maintaining long-lasting relationships. He is so poor at keeping friends that he notes, ‘the last time I had friends was eight years ago”(41) In relationships, both romantic or platonic, Binx feels he has to live up to grand expectations and is uncertain how […]

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There’s a subtle theme throughout the book of trying to find a place where one belongs. Be it in a spiritual/religious manner, or a basic mundane sense of purpose, everyone seems to be scrambling to find something to hold onto before they die. Binx seems to have a solid hold on looking for his in […]

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The time and setting of The Moviegoer show the meaninglessness of affluence the south post-war through the lives of Binx and Kate. While Binx appears to be a stock-broker who happily lives an ordinary existence in Gentilly, he really is unhappy with his life and contemplates “the possibility of a search…. the search is what […]

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“When Bellocq doesn’t like a photograph he scratches across the plate. But I know other ways to obscure a face. . .” pg. 44   This poem continues the trend of hiding what one doesn’t want to show to the world. It also revolves around the concept of hiding who one truly is underneath a […]

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A former street preacher who became an artist, poet, and musician, Gertrude Morgan painted biblical themes to illustrate her gospel teachings. Born on April 7, 1900, in Lafayette, Alabama, Morgan moved to New Orleans during the late 1930s following a separation from her “earthly” husband. In New Orleans she became affiliated with the Holiness and […]

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In our society, there are a lot of misconceived narratives about sex work which are accepted as fact. If you choose to believe these, you’ll believe that every full service sex worker is in it against their will, too drugged up to fully live, and, perhaps worst of all, ashamed of their profession. While some […]

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“Later, I took arsenic – tablets that I swallowed to keep me fair, bleached white as stone.” – pg. 20  This particular quote struck a chord with me the first time I read it and it still does as I type it. The sentiment that black women are only valid if they have lighter skin […]

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With the constant observation of both male guests and the direction of Countess P, Ophelia becomes less of a person and more of an art piece during her time at the brothel. Countess P instructs the girls to sit still and quietly, stretched out in poses that highlight their figures. Patrons of the brothel can […]

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[…] She calls me Violet now – a common name here in Storyville – except that I am the African Violet for the promise of that wild continent hidden beneath my white skin. At her cue, I walked slowly across the room, paused in strange postures until she called out, Tableau vivant, and I could […]

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Ophelia’s feelings of New Orleans remain largely negative throughout Bellocq’s Ophelia: “the gray husk of winter”; “…the city’s dull palette of gray”; “flies buzzing the meat-stand, cockroaches crisscrossing the banquette…and mosquitoes skimming flat water like skaters on a frozen pond.” To her, it is a prison (a larger one from the brothel) that she cannot […]

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As a whole, Natasha Trethewey’s Bellocq’s Ophelia is a stunning collection of poems that are written from the viewpoint of one of the famous photographer’s subjects. I think that by using poetry, Trethewey elevates the fictional story being told: there is a certain amount of mystery around Bellocq – details about his life, his choice […]

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Blanche. […] Do you remeber Shep Huntleigh? Stella. No. There is an overarching theme in A Streetcar Named Desire of men we never get to see but are named and talked about often. The most obvious one is Blanche’s dead husband Mr Allen Grey who committed suicide after Blanche confronts him about being gay. This incident traumatizes […]

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I first read A Streetcar Named Desire when I was a sophomore in high school. I was under the impression that reading classic plays would make me an interesting and cultured individual. This endeavor only made me more confused about the literary canon, but it did make my dad take me to see Cat on a Hot […]

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