Taylor, Mississippi (Location Key)

Taylor represents an example of how Faulkner's imaginary world intersects with the real one. In Sanctuary the hamlet where Temple Drake jumps off the train bound for a baseball game between in-state rivals to drive away with Gowan Stevens is named Taylor. The real Taylor in Lafayette County is less than ten miles south-southwest of Oxford, and a stop on the route between the University of Mississippi and Mississippi State University in Starkville. From Taylor, Temple is taken - by a route known only to Faulkner's imagination - to the Gothic world waiting at the Old Frenchman's ruined plantation. In Sanctuary the railroad station at Taylor is a very rural setting, deserted except for two wagons and a few lounging men in overalls. In Temple's eyes, at least, it looks "stark and ugly in the fresh morning" (36). The place is not named but referred to only as "an intermediate stop" when Temple's story is retold in Requiem for a Nun (100).