A soldier during the days of the Mississippi Territory, Patton became active in politics when Mississippi achieved statehood in 1817. In 1821, along with Thomas Hicks and William Lattimore, he was one of the "three Commissioners" who chose the site for the new state capital (79).
The "McClellan" who earns a spot on the list in Requiem for a Nun of the Civil War generals on both sides who heard the "shrill hackle-lifting" rebel yell in battle (188) is Union General George McClellan, commander-in-chief of the army that faced Lee during the early months of the Civil War.
As "Nancy" this black woman appears in "That Evening Sun" (1931) as a laundress and part-time servant of the Compson family who also sells herself as a prostitute to white men who don't always keep their promise to pay her. She is terrified of the black man in her life, whom Faulkner provocatively names "Jesus." Nancy prays that her Jesus will not come again, but the story ends without settling that issue. There is evidence that in the early 1930s Faulkner apparently began a longer narrative that would develop Nancy's life and character more fully, but it was never completed.
Greenwood Leflore (as Requiem for a Nun spells his name, though LeFlore is historically more accurate) was the son of Rebecca Cravatt, the daughter of a Choctaw chief (not mentioned in the novel), and Louis LeFleur, a French Canadian fur trader. He was educated by white Americans in Nashville.
Louis LeFleur was a French Canadian voyageur, or explorer. The "trading-post store" mentioned in Requiem for a Nun on the bluffs above the Pearl River became the seed for the city of Jackson (84). He married a local Choctaw, the daughter of a chief, and had a son named Greenwood Le Flore, who also appears in the novel's cast of characters.
A physician by training, William Lattimore was politically active during the years in which the Mississippi Territory became the State of Mississippi. In 1821, along with James Patton and Thomas Hinds, he was one of the "three Commissioners" referred to in Requiem for a Nun who chose the site for the new state capital (79).
Benjamin Humphreys (Faulkner misspells his name in Requiem for a Nun) was a Southern officer during the Civil War who turned to politics during Reconstruction. In October, 1865, he was elected Governor of Mississippi as a Democrat. As an unpardoned Confederate he was ineligible to serve by the terms of surrender, so he had himself inaugurated and sworn in. In June, 1868, Federal troops were used forcibly to remove him from office. He was a strong advocate of Jim Crow laws as a way to deny freed slaves their rights as citizens.
Thomas Hinds was a hero of the War of 1812 who afterward commanded the Mississippi territorial militia. After Mississippi gained statehood in 1817 he turned to politics, serving in the state legislature and later in the U.S. Congress. In 1821, along with James Patton and William Lattimore, he was one of the "three Commissioners" referred to in Requiem for a Nun who chose the site for the new state capital (79).
Ernest Hemingway was the American writer whom Faulkner considered his rival for most of his career, though the two men had a cordial long distance relationship and Faulkner often alluded to or quoted from Hemingway in public statements. In Requiem for a Nun Temple alludes to Hemingway's 1940 novel For Whom the Bell Tolls to explain that a woman who has been sexually assaulted could be in denial that it had happened to her: "it had never actually happened to a g-- woman, if she just refused to accept it, no matter who remembered, bragged" (121).
Referred to in the script as "GOVERNOR" and addressed, by Gavin, only by his first name - "Henry" (90) - the man who meets with Gavin and Temple in Act II of Requiem for a Nun to hear an informal appeal on behalf of Nancy is referred to as "the last, the ultimate seat of judgment" (89). In the stage directions he is identified not with Mississippi but with a "mythical" State, "the State of which Yoknapatawpha County is a unit" (89) - though elsewhere in the novel there is no ambiguity about the literary 'fact' that Yoknapatawpha is in Mississippi.
