T. S. Eliot's and Sigmund Freud's works, as well as folklore, local tradition, and hardboiled detective fiction, shape this stunning novel about the nature of evil. Sanctuary is the dark, at times horrific, narrative of Mississippi debutante Temple Drake's kidnapping and subsequent introduction of her own brand of venality into the Memphis underworld where she is held captive. Sanctuary is a novel by William Faulkner about a lawyer named Horace Benbow who defends a moonshiner who has been wrongfully accused of murder. The real murderer is the cruel Popeye, one of Faulkner's most terrifying characters, who had brutally raped and abducted Temple Drake, the teenaged daughter of a judge, in addition to the murder. Violence and desire abound in the novel's Deep South setting.