William Faulkner's novels can be seen as experiments with technique and meaning. This essay proposes to analyze the character of Temple Drake in Sanctuary as the product of one of these experiments. It will be hypothesized that she represents an empty symptom and that this symptom must be interpreted in the context of the Southern patriarchy of the 1920s and 1930s. Every time Temple Drake tries to define what her identity and her desires are, she exhibits a hysterical structure revealing the emptiness inside her mind.