ENCW 205 Fall 2021
Posted in Bellocq's Ophelia on Oct 30th, 2021
[posted on behalf of a student] When reading Bellocq’s Ophelia by Natasha Trethewey I kept thinking about the book Camera Lucida by Roland Barthes in regards to their similarities with photography. In Camera Lucida, Barthes defines a few different terms related to photography. There is the operator, which is the photographer, and the spectator, who is […]
Posted in Music on Oct 29th, 2021
In New Orleans, there are several unique traditions around funerals and burials, the most striking of which, in my opinion, is the Jazz funeral. Jazz funerals are full of vibrant colors, music (traditionally a brass band), and, in general, life. Such a service is less about mourning and more about the celebration of the life […]
Posted in Bellocq's Ophelia on Oct 29th, 2021
Since Hamlet, the name Ophelia has been pseudonymous with despair and tragedy in every form of media which makes Bellocq’s Ophelia all the more interesting. The ideas of discomfort, hiding oneself, objectification, race, and gender are prevalent throughout the piece. Within the book, Ophelia is not her own until she herself becomes a photographer and […]
Posted in A Streetcar Named Desire on Oct 29th, 2021
Throughout A Streetcar Named Desire, themes of escape and the struggle between fantasy and reality are explored through several unique and artistic ways. Blanche, the protagonist, constantly tries to escape themes of death which seem to follow her everywhere regardless. She tries to escape the reality of her life-changing by lying to herself and those […]
Posted in Bellocq's Ophelia on Oct 28th, 2021
Natasha Trethewey’s book, Bellocq’s Ophelia, is full of so much pain and each poem shares a different story, some similar stories, some not. There is a deeper meaning of identity and escapism, one or both being reflected in each and every poem. The main character, Ophelia, seems to have no “real identity.” She is a […]
Posted in Bellocq's Ophelia on Oct 28th, 2021
“A picture is worth a thousand words,” coined by Henrik Isben, according to Google, is the phrase that comes to mind when reading “Bellocq’s Ophelia” because Natasha Tretheway proved him wrong. She gave meaning to Bellocq’s images; without her creating narrative, we’d just believe that he was a man with a weird hobby who just […]
Posted in The Moviegoer on Oct 28th, 2021
In Walker Percy’s book, The Moviegoer, the main character Binx seems like any ordinary womanizing man. From the title, I expected he would be an avid movie watcher instead of a self-proclaimed film enthusiast. The book is well written and I believe it shows how well Binx is written by my distaste for him as […]
Posted in Bellocq's Ophelia on Oct 28th, 2021
Belloq’s Ophelia, is a character that is trapped between society’s limitations and who she can be if she were afforded the same opportunities as white men at this time. Lacking the opportunities and jobs afforded to white women and discriminated against for being a woman of color, she is forced to turn to prostitution to […]
Posted in Uncategorized on Oct 27th, 2021
Bellocq’s Ophelia by Natasha Trethewey is a powerful look into how women of the past (and possibly still today) were positioned in a man’s world. Although these poems take place in the early 1900s and are built around the prostitutes that Bellocq has so carefully photographed, what is most prominent about them is the fact […]
Posted in Bellocq's Ophelia on Oct 27th, 2021
In Bellocq’s Ophelia, the group of prostitutes from New Orleans ‘ redlight district in the early 20th century are represented by Ophelia. Her character functions as an everywoman that encompasses the story told in E.J. Bellocq’s Portraits. Bellocq’s Ophelia is a poetic analysis of perception at its core. The action is all driven by perception, even the inspiration […]
Posted in Uncategorized on Oct 27th, 2021
Identity was a clear theme throughout Bellocq’s Ophelia, within the first poem it paints a picture of the relationship between the Ophelia of Millais’s painting versus the photographed prostitutes of Storyville, New Orleans. The similarities between how they’re viewed, being trapped in a sense, and how they’re more so known for their final pictures. That moment […]
Posted in Bellocq's Ophelia on Oct 26th, 2021
In Bellocq’s Ophelia, we aren’t told a lot about the character writing, but rather we have to piece together the clues ourselves. One entry I keep coming back to is January 1911. In this, Ophelia is writing in response to her friend Constance. In this letter, she reveals that being unable to find a job […]
Posted in Uncategorized on Oct 26th, 2021
This book was different from the rest of the works that we have covered in class. The foremost and most obvious trait of this book is that it is a collection of poems about a sex worker. A close second is the fact that this book focuses on a mixed woman of color as the […]
Posted in Bellocq's Ophelia on Oct 26th, 2021
In Bellocq’s Ophelia, race plays a strong role as it plays a much bigger role in comparison to The Awakening, A Streetcar Named Desire, and The Moviegoer. Upon first glance, anyone could say “It’s because the main characters in the other three stories are white, while Ophelia is white-passing.” While that is true, it speaks […]
Posted in Uncategorized on Oct 26th, 2021
This book is very different from the other 3 books we have read in many ways. Firstly, it is poems instead of a novel which right aways gives it a different vibe. Secondly, the “characters” are people of class and high status. This is a fact I actually enjoy because I feel we are able […]
Posted in Bellocq's Ophelia on Oct 26th, 2021
For me, one of the most interesting parts about reading Bellocq’s Ophelia was the differences in perspective throughout the collection of poems. The collection starts with a poem that doesn’t seem to have a set perspective. In fact, it almost seems like the reader is watching from outside the scene, watching as if we were a wallflower, […]
Posted in Bellocq's Ophelia on Oct 26th, 2021
Here’s the caption to this painting at the Tate Gallery in London: This work shows the death of Ophelia, a scene from Shakespeare’s play Hamlet. Many Victorian painters like Millais used Shakespeare’s plays as inspiration. Hamlet murders Ophelia’s father, and she is so upset she falls into a stream and downs. The flowers she is […]
Posted in The Moviegoer on Oct 26th, 2021
[posted on behalf of a student] In Walker Percy’s The Moviegoer the main character, Binx, has a very close relationship with his half-brother, Lonnie, who is disabled and uses a wheelchair. Binx says, “He is my favorite, to tell the truth. Like me, he is a moviegoer. He will go see anything. But we are […]
Posted in The Moviegoer on Oct 23rd, 2021
On the back flap of The Moviegoer, Walker Percy’s author bio states that before he became a writer he converted to Catholicism. Before he began writing about a search, he conducted his own. Biographical literature on Walker Percy includes his quotations on the matter of his conversion. When asked why he joined the Church, Percy answered, “I […]
Posted in The Moviegoer on Oct 22nd, 2021
As a self-proclaimed expert film watcher, I expect so much more from the protagonist whom I thought I could relate to. Instead, Percy’s Binx Bolling was irritating and uninteresting, a do-nothing, and I wasn’t won over by his frequent jaunts to a movie theater. Initially, I expected to have that constant pull from reality on […]