Sanctuary Short Guide

Sanctuary Themes

Preview of Sanctuary Summary:

Generally speaking, as one commentator put it, Faulkner's interest has always been "inclined toward history as the controlling force of existence." This attitude is perhaps best expressed in the words of a character from A Requiem for a Nun (1951): "The past is never dead. It's not even past." Lingering over the deprivations of the past which persist in the present, Faulkner's works record the painful degeneration of the old South and its traditions. The main theme of Sanctuary owes thus to the self-imposed mission which animates all of his best known novels. Sentimental and Utopian as it may be, the study of the social processes behind the passing of the genteel South and of the conditions for its spiritual and political renewal is the subject of this and of other Faulkner works.

In Sanctuary, a book in which no one triumphs and everyone fails, the overarching motif...
(read more)