Texas in Requiem for a Nun (Location)

Texas is mentioned three times in the novel. It is one of the places in "the West" to which the Confederate soldiers who are not willing to surrender at the end of the Civil War decide to go (204); this is a role "Texas" plays in a number of the fictions - a generic place to escape to and start over. "Texas" is also vaguely defined as the location of some of the "universities" that veterans of World War II choose to attend on the G.I. Bill (194). But one specific Texas location is identified: Gowan is absent from Jefferson fishing in "Aransas Pass" - a town on the Gulf of Mexico north of Corpus Christi - when the murder at the center of the novel's drama occurs (136).