ABSTRACT
In this chapter, we explore our “final word,” the construction of epitaphs on gravemarkers, tombstones, and monuments. Epitaphs represent our final opportunity to story ourselves and others and to begin to construct memories based on these stories and identities. Historic tombstones and the gendered notions contained within those epitaphs constructed and sustained traditional and subversive gendered and racialized identities, and continue to do so, especially among women, in the South. While, at first examination, epitaphs seem to construct and sustain very traditional gender identities, there is an underlying subversion of these constructs within these texts that suggest that gender constructions, and the resulting “Twitter” versions of life stories that emerge from these constructions, are complex, powerful, progressive, and often overshadowed by other socially constructed standpoints such as religion and class.
