Jefferson Courthouse and Square in Sanctuary (Location)

Located at the center of Yoknapatawpha, the county courthouse (with its apt "gothic entrance") and the wide grounds surrounding it (set with "locusts and water oaks") appear in many of Faulkner's fictions (281, 161). The square around the courthouse is the physical, economic and social center of Jefferson. It is first described in some detail in Sanctuary in Chapter 15, when Horace goes into town on a Saturday, the day when the country people typically come in to town too to shop. In that scene Horace notes the law office he and his father formerly shared, the undertaker's parlor, the alleys where the farmers' wagons are hitched, and the "drug- and music-stores" outside of which the country people listen to music playing (112). At the end of the novel the courthouse itself is the scene of Lee Goodwin's trial.