• Journal of Convergence for Information Technology
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.105-114
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• 2018

The purpose of this study is to reconsider whether Temple in William Faulkner's Requiem for a Nun has grown morally. Temple in Sanctuary, the previous work was raped with a corn cob by Popeye and perjured in the court, resulting in Lee Goodwin's brutal death. Now she is now a mother of two children and a wife of Gowan Stevens, but she cannot get out of the past and tries to run away with Pete, Red's brother, but she was resisted by Nancy Mannigoe, a nanny. Nancy tries to stop Temple sacrificing herself and Temple's baby. When confronting Nancy who accepted her death sentence without hesitation, Temple realized her past guilt which never fades out. A lapse of 20 years between Sanctuary and Requiem provides Temple and author himself opportunities for spiritual and moral growth in spite of painful realization that the past is never past. On the other hand, Faulkner tells the history and the past of Jefferson elaborating the description of the courthouse and the jail. Both are correlated in thematic perspective, the former representing humanity's need for security, the latter the opposite impulse toward aggression and destruction. but together represent the presentness of the past and the fluidity of time.