Previous
Frank Hunt
A Puerto Rican woman who has accused Fonny of raping her. Mrs. Rogers moved to New York City six years before she was raped, coming to the city with an American engineer she met in Puerto Rico. Unfortunately, this man left her after they had three children, but Mrs. Rogers remained in the city. As Ernestine points out to Tish at one point, Mrs. Rogers doesn’t think she’s lying when she says that Fonny raped her. Even though Fonny is innocent, Ernestine explains, Mrs. Rogers can’t change her testimony because doing so would force her to reexamine this traumatic experience. Unfortunately, she was tricked into singling out Fonny, since Officer Bell arrested Fonny and made him the only black man in a lineup of other possible suspects, knowing that Mrs. Rogers already indicated that the rapist was a black man. As such, it was easy for her to assume Fonny was the perpetrator. When Sharon travels to Puerto Rico—where Mrs. Rogers eventually flees—to convince her to reconsider her testimony, the conversation is too much for Mrs. Rogers to bear, and she starts screaming. Shortly thereafter, she flees once again, evading Sharon and making it impossible for anyone to get her to alter her testimony.
Victoria Rogers Quotes in If Beale Street Could Talk
The If Beale Street Could Talk quotes below are all either spoken by Victoria Rogers or refer to Victoria Rogers. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Troubled About My Soul Quotes
Will you listen to me? Please? Of course, she’s lying. We know she’s lying. But—she’s—not—lying. As far as she’s concerned, Fonny raped her and that’s that, and now she hasn’t got to deal with it anymore. It’s over. For her. If she changes her testimony, she’ll go mad. Or become another woman. And you know how often people go mad, and how rarely they change.
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Ernestine says this to Tish in a discussion about how they’re going to go about getting Victoria Rogers to change her testimony. In this moment, Ernestine prepares Tish for the very good possibility that Mrs. Rogers will refuse to alter what she has already said about the case. To do this, she tells her sister that Mrs. Rogers isn’t lying, and when Tish voices her surprise, she clarifies that Mrs. Rogers isn’t telling the truth, either. This is because she (Mrs. Rogers) actively believes that Fonny is the man who raped her. “As far as she’s concerned,” Ernestine says, “Fonny Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Accusamus eaque omnis. Velit eaque error. Possimus corrupti soluta. Qui aut a. Rerum voluptas debitis. Voluptatem accusantium est. Mollitia eaque ipsa. Perferendis consectetur et. Dicta impedit ut. Ducimus possimus quo. Non inventore in. Eligendi atque placeat. Molestiae earum eum. Libero sit beatae. At a deserunt. Sint aperiam consequatur. Minima porro perferendis. Sit neque odit. Tenetur qui dignissimos. Qui et ut. Voluptate labore corporis. Hic tempore laborum. Nisi quia ea. Qui
Get the entire If Beale Street Could Talk LitChart as a printable PDF.
"My students can't get enough of your charts and their results have gone through the roof." -Graham S.
Victoria Rogers Character Timeline in If Beale Street Could Talk
The timeline below shows where the character Victoria Rogers appears in If Beale Street Could Talk. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Troubled About My Soul
...Fonny in jail, she goes to Mr. Hayward’s office with Sharon. He informs them that Victoria Rogers—the woman who accused Fonny of raping her—has “disappeared,” most likely having fled to Puerto...
(full context)
Hayward clarifies that he thinks Officer Bell is the person who told Mrs. Rogers to accuse Fonny. As he talks about the case, Tish sits in his office and...
(full context)
...do not know this, but I am willing to bet—that that is how and why Mrs. Rogers has disappeared,” he says. Hearing this, Sharon concludes that they have to “buy time,” and...
(full context)
The day after meeting with Hayward, Tish breaks the news to Fonny that Mrs. Rogers has fled. When he hears this, he’s distraught, asking how they’re going to find her,...
(full context)
...into a bar for a frank discussion about how the family is going to find Mrs. Rogers . At this point, the book provides Mrs. Rogers’s written statement, clarifying that she has...
(full context)
Tish has never met Victoria Rogers, but she knows she’s a Puerto Rican woman whose husband abandoned her after bringing...
(full context)
Tish asks Ernestine why she thinks Mrs. Rogers identified Fonny, and Ernestine states the simple fact that Fonny was “presented to her as...
(full context)
...Hayward’s office to be briefed for her trip to Puerto Rico. He tells her that Mrs. Rogers is living with her “common-law husband,” a twenty-two-year-old man named Pietro who works at a...
(full context)
...meets with Pietro, revealing who she is and telling him that she wants to see Victoria Rogers. Unfortunately, he refuses to believe that Fonny is innocent, and he insists that Victoria...
(full context)
...daughter marry Fonny if she thought he were a rapist. Still, though, he says that Victoria has “been through shit,” so much that she doesn’t have the emotional energy to meet...
(full context)
In Puerto Rico, Jaime drives Sharon to Victoria Rogers’s address in a favela (a low-income area commonly compared to “slums”). When she finally...
(full context)
...one hand over the necklace, saying, “Daughter, daughter. In the name of God.” With this, Victoria Rogers lets out a terrified shriek, screaming at Sharon and telling her to leave as...
(full context)
Zion
...They then speak briefly about Fonny’s trial, as Tish explains that Hayward hopes to “destroy” Mrs. Rogers ’s testimony by saying that Officer Bell purposefully made Fonny the only black man in...
(full context)
...Tish about what happened in Puerto Rico, explaining that she stayed for two days after Mrs. Rogers screamed. Loyal to Sharon, Jaime kept an eye on Mrs. Rogers, eventually watching as Pietro...
(full context)
...[…].” Going on, he tells Frank that “the City” wants to delay the trial until Mrs. Rogers reappears and can testify, meaning Fonny will continue to languish in jail. As the two...
(full context)
