Far from the lonely, white-dominated childhood of Styron's hero, Nat Turner was asked to plan and particiuate in his elder's theft raids against white slave owners.

The expeditions Turner planned were successful. This gave the blacks a confidence in his intelligence and judgment. His legitimacy as a leader was clearly not dependent on his attachment to the "master" and his own status as a "house nigger." Add to this the fact that the blacks were overawed by his ability and desire to read and we have a somewhat more logical leadership figure than is presented in Mr. Styron's Turner.

According to his original confessions, Nat Turner was aloof, but it is clear that he was not removed from, and contemptuous of, his fellows. Indeed, had he in truth been as contemptuous of blacks as Styron portrays, he would hardly have been called on to plan or partake in the theft raids they conducted. Furthermore, he would have been distrusted, disliked, and excluded. In fact, his childhood and youth would have been as desperately lonely, unhappy, and soul-twisting as was that of Styron's creation.

3) Turner as a Minister

There is no evidence of any kind that Turner or any of his men lusted for white women. From the visitations he described and the rhetoric he used, even through the white lawyer who took down the confessions, one can recognize Turner as a black Spiritualist minister.

Styron exhibits little knowledge and less affection when it comes to black institutions, specifically the church. Since Styron has contemplated this book since 1948, and spent eight years in the actual writing of it, it is singular that he devoted no attention at all to he Spiritualist sects, of which Turner was clearly one of the more outstanding members. Styron's character is not even well enough acquainted with the church's rhetoric to speak in the vernacular. He constantly refers to "visions" from Heaven. Modern black clergy would refer to the same Occurrences as visits from the Spirit or the Holy Ghost, and in the original confessions, Nat Turner uses the term Spirit throughout. Styron's hero preaches only once in the entire book and then very poorly. Black ministers preached as often as they could gather a crowd and they preached well, well by black standards I mean here, or else the people looked for a minister who could preach. Styron's Turner could not have gathered a following large enough to raid a watermelon patch.

The true Nat Turner continuously prayed to his congregation, as witness the following quote from the original confessions: "Knowing the influence I had obtained over the minds of my fellow servants (not by means of conjuring and such like tricks--for to them I always spoke of such things with contempt), but by the communion of the Spirit whose revelations I often communicated to them and they believed and said my wisdom came from God."

4) The Motives and Motivations of the Slaves

Styron's perceptions of black people are interesting. There is no historical evidence whatsoever that Turner or any of his men had sexual interests in white women. However, in the entire book, which spans the length of his life, only three black women are shown. The first is Turner's grandmother, a freshly captured slave who dies at age 14 after giving birth to Turner's mother. The grandmother is portrayed as a noble, if bestial and uncomprehending, savage. Turner's mother is shown as an ignorant, narrow, self-satisfied women. Not only is she proud to be a house slave of the Turner family, she accepts being raped at the point of a broken bottle by a drunken white overseer and then, immediately afterwards, sings contentedly to herself while preparing dinner. The third women is a postitute about whom Turner has masturbatory fantasies. Once.

The black men in the book are of similar caliber. For example, the reader meets only one free black man, and instead of living in the city as custom, common sense, comfort, and economic necessity would dictate, this man and his family are starving to death in the impoverished countryside. The man's only apparent function in the story is to show the inability of blacks to live without the guidance of white people and to verbally excoriate Nat's excessively cruel master. By contrast, the slaves are somewhat better fed and generate an aura of contentment. I noticed that some of the slaves suffered under cruel masters. I noticed that the author deplored cruelty to slaves and condemned cruel slave masters. I noticed that every single one of the slaves who joined Turner did so because he sought revenge for past wrongs inflicted by cruel masters. Not a love of freedom, not to relieve family or friends from the evil burden of slavery, only for revenge. Every single one.

One wonders what the real Turner's motivations were.

"At this time I reverted in my mind to the remarks made of me in childhood, and the things that had been shewn me--and as it had been said of me in childhood by those by whom I had been taught to pray, both white and black, and in whom I had the greatest confidence, that I had too much sense to be raised, and if I was, I would never be of any use to any one as a slave. Now finding I had arrived to man's estate, and was a slave, and these revelations being made known to me, I began to direct my attention to this great object, to fulfill the purpose for which, by this time, I felt assured I was intended."

In other words, Nat Turner could not stand to be a slave himself; and he felt a sacred mission to free his people.

It is intriguing to note that, in his entire adult life, Styron's hero performed only two creative acts; the first was to plan the revolt, the second was to build a flush toilet for whites. The relationship between this Turner and the man who spoke the above words would be interesting to establish.

Styron's Prejudices