ABSTRACT
This chapter analyzes Gothic mystery author Anna Katharine Green’s girl detective Violet Strange, whose liminal position between aristocratic society and an uncanny underworld makes her a transgressive force for good. At once a harmless-looking debutante, a detective confronting gruesome Gothic crimes, and a protector of the innocent, Violet subverts patriarchal standards and contemporary feminine ideals by assuming the character of a sexless rescuer, stepping out of the role of the stereotypical Gothic woman - sexually available, helpless, and in imminent peril - and into that of traditionally male archetypes like Sherlock Holmes. Through the liminality of the girl detective character, this chapter outlines how the American Gothic reflects Green’s contemporary anxieties surrounding gender norms and moral authenticity and how these concerns form the tension between the human desires for order and disorder.
