Requiem for a Nun: Analysis of Major Characters
"Requiem for a Nun" is a novel by William Faulkner that serves as a sequel to his earlier work, "Sanctuary." The primary focus of the narrative is on Temple Drake, who has transitioned from her traumatic past of abduction and degradation to her current life as a married woman and mother. Major characters include Gowan Stevens, Temple's husband, who grapples with guilt over their shared history and the tragic consequences that arise from it. Gavin Stevens, Gowan's uncle and a lawyer, represents the law in a complex Southern societal context, striving to navigate local prejudices while seeking justice for his family. The character of Nancy Mannigoe, Temple’s babysitter, adds depth to the narrative as she embodies a shared understanding of past traumas, despite her own troubled background. Other pivotal characters, such as the governor and Pete, introduce themes of guilt, complicity, and moral ambiguity, ultimately leading to a tragic climax involving the death of Temple's child. The story intricately explores the intersections of past and present, highlighting the enduring impact of trauma and societal expectations.
Requiem for a Nun: Analysis of Major Characters
Author: William Faulkner
First published: 1951
Genre: Novel
Locale: Mississippi
Plot: Psychological realism
Time: The 1930's
Mrs. Gowan Stevens, née Temple Drake, the central character of William Faulkner's earlier worky Sanctuary (1931), a novel in which Temple is abducted by a petty criminal, Popeye Vitelli, and forced to live in a Memphis brothel. She is both repulsed by and attracted to the evil and sexually strange outlaw and even provides perjured testimony to protect Popeye from a murder charge. At the end of Sanctuary,Templeis taken abroad by her father for a long rest cure. By the opening of Requiem for a Nun, she has married and is the mother of two children: a son, Bucky, and an infant daughter who is smothered in her crib by Nancy Mannigoe. The dramatic episodes in the novel explore the lingering connection between Temple's past life of degradation and obsession with her current one of guilt and remorse. She still experiences some lingering attraction for the sexual license released during her captivity, and she agrees to run away with one of her captor's brothers in the backstory at the beginning of the novel.
Gowan Stevens,whoin Sanctuary was responsible for placing Temple in Popeye's control by getting drunk and smashing his car on a back road in search of more bootleg liquor. What began as a college spree turns increasingly ugly. Unable to control his drinking, Gowan is unable to help Temple, and he eventually runs away, leaving her in the control of the criminal. Gowan feels responsible for destroying Temple's reputation, and by the time of Requiem for a Nun,hehasmarried her and assisted her in living down the perfidy of her past. Unfortunately, the consequences of that past reappear and cost him the life of his baby daughter.
Gavin Stevens, Gowan's uncle and the lawyer who defends the murderer of his nephew's daughter. Gavin is a recurring character in Faulkner's fiction and appears as the representative of the law, a law that transcends, or at least tries to transcend, the local prejudices and suspicions of Jefferson, Mississippi, Faulkner's mythical Southern community. In spite of Nancy's guilt and conviction, Gavin tries to get a last-minute stay of execution for his client by having Temple visit the governor of Mississippi to recount the details of her kidnapping and subsequent behavior that led to the circumstances surrounding the death of her child.
Nancy Mannigoe (or Mannihoe), the nurse Temple hired to act as babysitter for her daughter. Nancy is a local African American woman of questionable reputation who has been both a drug addict and a prostitute. In spite of the fact that Temple repeatedly refers to her as a “dope-fiend nigger whore,” she is the only one with whom Temple can talk about her past life and who understands the kind of compulsions that the white, upper-middle-class Temple has experienced. Nancy kills Temple's child in order to force Temple to stay with her husband and not abandon both him and her family to run away with Pete, the brother of the man with whom she tried to escape the degraded life she lived under the control of Popeye in Memphis.
Mr. Tubbs, who runs the Yoknapatawpha County jail in Jefferson. He is a typical Faulknerian poor white Southerner who displays an awkward deference to the upper-class Stevens through the manners and civilities of faded gentility he thinks appropriate in social meetings between the classes.
The governor of Mississippi, who hears Temple's late-night confession of her guilty complicity in the death of her daughter at the hands of Nancy. Although moved by the story, he does not commute the sentence.
Pete, the brother of Alabama Red, who was Temple's lover and who was killed when he tried to help her escape Popeye's control in Sanctuary. In Requiem for a Nun, Pete comes to Jefferson to blackmail Temple with some incriminating letters she wrote to his brother, and she agrees to run away with him. This event precipitates the death of her child.