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 make a living. “I did not accept then, though I had tea with her- the first I’d had in days. And later, too hungry to reason, I spent the last of my purse on a good meal. It was to her that I went when I had to leave my hotel, and I am as yet adjusting to my new life” (Trethewey, 12). Sadly, not an uncommon situation in 1911 for a rural woman seeing the glimmer and opportunities of the city. Few jobs in 1911 would hire a woman, even fewer that would hire a woman of color. Many women turned to sex work in turn for enough money to feed themselves and often a hungry family. “I thought not to do the work I once did, back- bending and domestic; my schooling a gift- even those half days at picking time, listening to Miss J-” (Trethewey, 8).
Trethewey provided an ending that really drove home that it was society and their limitations upon Ophelia that truly trapped her. In the end, Ophelia becomes a photographer, armed with knowledge of what Bellocq taught her. “Now I wait for departure, the whistle’s shrill calling. The first time I tried this shot I thought of my mother shrinking against the horizon- so distracted. I looked into a capped lens, saw only my own clear eye” (Trethewey, 46).