Bellocq’s Ophelia is a poetry collection about a biracial prostitute named Ophelia or Violet in a New Orleans brothel. The name Ophelia echoes the character in Shakespeare’s Hamlet named Ophelia, a young woman who goes mad and ends up killing herself. Natasha Trethewey’s collection is about self-identity and the search to find oneself while struggling through the worst the world has to offer.
We start the book with a description of Millais’s painting of Ophelia compared to Bellocq’s Ophelia photograph. Both versions of Ophelia feature a tragically beautiful woman; the main difference, however, is that Millais’s model is clothed and Bellocq’s model is not. “Ophelia’s final gaze aims skyward, her palms curling open as if she’s just said, take me,” Trethewey writes, referring to Millais’s painting, which displays that even in a vulnerable state the ‘take me’ could be seen as both literal towards death or towards something more sexual. The poem continues:
“But in her face, a dare. Staring into the camera, she seems to pull all movement from her slender limbs and hold it in her heavy-lidded eyes. Her body limp as dead Ophelia’s her lips poised to open, to speak.”
This ties Bellocq’s photograph to the painting and how both models are seemingly dead and hold all their emotion in their face, which makes them tragically beautiful; but because Bellocq’s version is of a naked woman, we see more of the sexual feelings towards Ophelia, referring to the ‘take me’ from Millais’s version.
In sections 1, we get introduced to the letter Ophelia writes to her teacher friend back home named Constance Wright. Letter Home gives us information about how Ophelia is struggling to find a job but no business wants to hire “a girl.” We also learn that she is a biracial woman who attempted to present herself as white. All she wants is to explore new opportunities and escape her past in this new place. In section 2, the first letter is about Countess P and her advice for new girls; the ‘new girls’ are the newly hired prostitutes. The rules, to sum them up, are that you must learn that your purpose is to be watched and that you have to become what the clients desire, ultimately letting the clients see and experience what they want no matter the cost to oneself. Ophelia then writes to Constance, talking about how she has a roof over her head, thanks to Countess P, and writes about how she was auctioned off as a newcomer and a virgin along with Countess P stating that she recites poetry to give her more of a prestigious presenting past-life along with being called the African Violet to seem exotic. In the response to Ophelia, Constance is pissed off and calls her a wayward girl and mentions that he hates her new life choices; Ophelia’s response is that all she wants from Constances is his daily mundane life details. This shows that Ophelia truly craves the peace and quiet of a simple life and and the realness of self-identity and not what she has been backed into the corner to choose.
We are introduced to the fact that Ophelia has been sexually assaulted in the letter written in February, 1911; she talks about when she hit puberty and had a man grope her in the feed store. We also learn that she has been raised to mimic “white” poise and prestige and to be watched by trying to please her white father by learning how to mock his gestures and expressions, along with taking arsenic tablets to have bleached looking skin. We know that she was raped from the letter written in April, 1911 when a guy in the carnival mask chased her into the tobacco barn and placed a coin on her tongue. This shows that Ophelia was in a way pre-disposed to be in this position in life with how she was treated by men along with the mirroring her father to be more socially acceptable.
We get introduced in March, 1911 to Bellocq and how that he visits strictly to take pictures. “Now I face the camera, wait for the photograph to show me who I am,” (Pg. 21) this shows that Ophelia is still unsure of herself and who she truly is in this life. We see in September, 1911 that Ophelia has bought herself a camera and is now taking pictures with Bellocq as well as still being his model. Ophelia has gained more of a fascination with the art of photograph, being the woman behind the camera, and the way that it feels to dissect everything. She is truly fascinated by shiny features. Bellocq and Ophelia seem to have a very close friendly relationship instead of the client and prostitute relationship.
In section 3, we get introduced to the Storyville Diary. The first one, titled Naming, is about how Ophelia finds comfort in her name and how she she used it growing up on what seems to be a plantation. The second one is about her father, we learn that she doesn’t remember much about him but we can assume that she feared him. However, we do see that he is the reason she holds a place in her heart for education. She also states that it is her biggest fear that he will come in and be both her client and father. The third letter is about Bellocq, she finds it odd that he truly wants nothing but to take the pictures of the women. The Blue book is introduced in the forth letter, “Violet, a fair-skinned beauty, recites poetry and soliloquies; nightly she preforms her tableau vivant, becomes a living statue, and object of art- and I fade again into someone I’m not,” (Pg. 40) the blue book seems to be a book of all the prostitutes in the brothel along with a description, but Ophelia finds hers to not be accurate to herself. The last couple letters are more about Ophelia taking the pictures along with Bellocq and him teaching her the photography trade.
Overall, this was my favorite book to read during the 3-week and that shocks me because poetry is not my forte. It offers up the differences in society from then to now, especially with the overall theme of colorism and how prostitution was in a way normalized back then compared to now.