ABSTRACT
Beginning on May 1, 1866 in Memphis, Tennessee, and continuing over the course of three days, a large group of white male police officers and small store owners raped and brutalized African American citizens in South Memphis. The incident is known as The Memphis Riot. In the social and cultural context of nineteenth-century Memphis, Tennessee, Thompson was, arguably, tolerated as a freedwoman who stood up for herself and other women violated during the Memphis Riots; she was accepted as having physical limitations and thus her need for a crutch; however, it is precisely the revelation of her cross-dressing that renders her monstrous. The Gothic tales that focus on transitory bodies and situations expose Victorian cultural constructions of what is "natural" and "normal" for what they are: illusory and fragile. Late Victorian Gothic literature, in particular, reflects the mixture of anxiety, volatility, and a sense of transitions.
