In "Bellocq's Ophelia" by Natasha Tretheway, the author calls herself a whore, named Ophelia, who works in the red-light district of New Orleans. We see of Ophelia's life on display and her experiences as a prostitute. From what I have read, I have viewed this book as a heartbreaking piece, and a reality that still presently so many girls are either forced into, or choose.
from “Letters from Storyville,” March 1911
"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.
For him I learned to shape my gestures,
practiced expressions on my pliant face...."
This is sad for a young girl to feel she must please her father by being a prostitute. Even more disturbing that he apparently taught her how to behave in a certain manor to this job.
I really like that you used that particular quote, in regards to the girls having very posed movements and gestures. The reoccurring theme I noticed throughout the poem is how everything the girls do is very calculated. Storyville seems to give the girls no free will or independence in regards to their own person. It's really sad to think this was a legalized market for twenty years here, and also how during this time period children were not thought of as how we think of children today. They didn't have a phase of growing up and disney princesses, it was always having to act proper and attract/please the man.
ReplyDeleteMaci, I agree reading the book brings about a feeling of overwhelming distress. As you stated, the most appalling fact of the poem is such a young girl having to please her father by learning the proper way to be a prostitute.
ReplyDeleteIn the first stanza of “Letters from Storyville,” March 1911, Ophelia is explaining the awkwardness she faces being "suited for [that] work." However, she remembers that her mother taught her during her childhood how to "curtsy and be still," but most importantly, please her father who was a white man. The importance of Ophelia pleasing her white father portrays the importance pleasing a white man during this time in general and how it prepared her to be a prostitute.
During the rest of the poem the reader gets insight into Ophelia’s identity crisis and her struggle with being biracial. For instance, she took pills to keep her skin, “fair, bleached white as stone.” This is the beginning of the racial identity problems the author Natasha Trethewey puts throughout the book. Ophelia during further reading of the poem seems lost and confused about herself. Ophelia ends the poem saying that her only escape from work is school. She describes work, however, as a place where she’s lost and depends on the camera to show her who she really is.