Sanctuary by William Faulkner (Book Analysis): Detailed Summary, Analysis and Reading Guide

By Bright Summaries

Unlock the more straightforward side of Sanctuary with this concise and insightful summary and analysis!

This engaging summary presents an analysis of Sanctuary by William Faulkner, which centres around the lawyer Horace Benbow as he defends a moonshiner who has been falsely charged with murder. The real murderer is the sadistic Popeye, one of Faulkner’s most chilling creations, who has not only committed the murder, but also brutally raped and abducted Temple Drake, the teenaged daughter of a judge. In the Deep South of the novel, violence and lust saturate everyday life, and justice is nowhere to be found. William Faulkner is widely recognised as one of the most significant American authors of the 20th century, and was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1949.

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This in-depth and informative reading guide brings you:
• A complete plot summary
• Character studies
• Key themes and symbols
• Questions for further reflection

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• Language: English
• Publisher: BrightSummaries.com
• Release date: May 20, 2019
• ISBN: 9782808019484

Book preview

AMERICAN WRITER

Born in New Albany, Mississippi in 1897.

Died in Byhalia, Mississippi in 1962.

Notable works:

The Sound and the Fury (1929), novel

As I Lay Dying (1930), novel

Absalom, Absalom! (1936), novel

Born William Cuthbert Falkner (the correct spelling of his family name), the winner of the 1949 Nobel Prize in Literature grew up in a literary family while also learning to ride horses, hunt and fish. His strongest influences were his mother, who encouraged him to read and draw, and his nanny Caroline Barr.

He did not graduate from high school, and then managed to enlist in the Canadian Royal Airforce by pretending to be British, but World War I ended before he flew any active missions, which did not stop him from adopting the persona (and the uniform) of an RAF pilot when he returned to Mississippi.

Prior to 1926, when his debut novel Soldiers’ Pay was published, he wrote mainly poetry and absorbed the work of modernists such as the British-American poet T.S Elliot (1888-1965) and the Irish novelist James Joyce (1882-1941). He was advised by the American writer Sherwood Anderson (1876-1941) to write stories based on the rural Mississippi countryside that included his home town