The Confessions of Nat Turner

This article is about the 1967 novel by William Styron. For the Confessions of Nat Turner published in 1831, see Nat Turner's Rebellion § Aftermath.

The Confessions of Nat Turner

First edition cover
Author	William Styron
Language	English
Publisher	Random House
Publication date	1967
Publication place	United States
Media type	Print (Hardback & Paperback)
Pages	480
ISBN	0-679-60101-5 (1st ed)
OCLC	30069097
Dewey Decimal	813/.54 20
LC Class	PS3569.T9 C6 1994

The Confessions of Nat Turner is a 1968 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by American writer William Styron. Presented as a first-person narrative by historical figure Nat Turner, the novel concerns Nat Turner's Rebellion in Virginia in 1831. It is based on The Confessions of Nat Turner: The organizer and leader of the Late Insurrection in Southampton, Virginia, a first-hand account of Turner's confessions purportedly transcribed during an interview while Turner was in jail awaiting execution. It was transcribed and published by Nat Turner's lawyer, Thomas R. Gray, in 1831.

Time Magazine included the novel in its TIME 100 Best English-language Novels from 1923 to 2005.

Historical background

The novel is based on a true event that took place in Virginia in 1831. It was an insurrection that took the lives of approximately 65 white slaveholders and their families. The aftermath resulted in an indiscriminate, retaliatory slaughter of blacks throughout the region. The book is based on an extant document, the "confession" of Nat Turner as told to his white lawyer Thomas R. Gray. In the historical confessions, and in the novel,Turner claims to have been divinely inspired, charged with a mission from God to organize and lead a slave uprising in the Virginia township of Jerusalem, where he and his co-conspirators were held in captive slavery. Turner was an educated preacher and read from the Bible daily. His visions, as he interpreted them, were based on his readings and knowledge of scripture in an era when very few black slaves were allowed to learn to read. His plans for rebellion grew and took shape as he interpreted his increasingly detailed visions and shared them, along with biblical theology, with other slaves in the region.Turner believed God was talking directly to him and instructing him to take vengeance against "the sinners in Jerusalem" - which also happened to be the name of his township. The "messages" told him to organize a rebellion and kill all the evil slaveholding white families - men, women and children - with their own weapons - unless they had a "certain mark" that would inform Turner that God didn't want those persons killed. In a very real way the bottom line was Nat Turner truly believed he was being directed on a divine mission from God. Styron's novel is incredibly well researched regarding the time, place and political climate of 1831. With regards to actual knowledge about Nat Turner's personal life there was only the jailhouse interview and prejudiced news accounts. Styron, in the manner of most of today's 21st century "historic novelists", writes in the first person voice of Nat concerning his deepest feelings of rage and injustice regarding the sin of "a human owning a human". As with all similar fictionalized novels it does not purport to be completely factual, as how can any writer actually know the daily comings, goings, conversations and interrelationships spanning the years of their main character's life? The extant words purportedly spoken by Turner and transcribed by his attorney were probably formalized in order to be presented in court. That document has often been criticized for the formality of speech transcribed in the lawyer's published document. Critics have often used that issue as a way to undermine and attack the value of the document. Even so, what has been gleaned over time, based on those writings and the murders committed, is the belief many scholars have that mental illness may have driven Nat Turner's actions, while others believe Turner to have been moved by religiosity. Styron believed both elements of Turner's psyche were involved. He renders a theory, through the voice of Nat, that any human being who is subjected to being bought and sold, then cruelly confined to horrendous forced labor and violent, inhuman punishments - ones that he and his spiritual brothers and sisters had been subjected to - must logically, understandably, go mad or insane in varying degrees, from suffering those continuous life-long, life threatening traumas. It took Styron five years to complete his novel which he started working on in 1962. By 1968, when it was published, it emerged into an America on fire. The Civil Rights Movement was being led by the Black Panthers and other extreme factions. Martin Luther King had been assassinated and his appeal of peace and equality was replaced with racially motivated violence from both blacks and whites. Through smoke and flames came the riots in Watts, Newark and Detroit. Medger Evers' death, Selma,the Birmingham bombings and hundreds of black people harmed, harassed and murdered in their quest for equality. Strangely, Styron's book was instantly condemned by black intellectuals merely on the fact it was "written by a white man". "The Confessions of Nat Turner" is, in reality, a book advocating rebellion against exactly what black people of the not only the 1830s, but also the 1960s, were themselves fighting against. Had it been assessed by cooler minds at the time the book could have promoted a wider and deeper awareness of the violent injustices suffered by blacks over the then past 150 years in a major way. The black condemnation of the novel was unjust and based not on the merits of the book but on white prejudice. This condemnation, widely published by black writers and journalists of the 1960s,resulted in the book being virtually banned by black intellectuals and readers. Even so, the book won a Pulitzer Prize, as was it's due. It is a harsh, sprawling indictment against black slavery and the fact it was written by a white man, condemning white slave holders, was a risky professional undertaking by William Styron in the 1960s. In later, more recent printings of the novel, Styron has included an afterward concerning the widespread condemnations by blacks against him. It is worth reading. He discusses a writer's quest for truth, inspiration and the right and freedom of every artist to express a personal point of view. He never apologizes, although he does explain his interest in writing often socially difficult works (such as "Sophie's Choice"- about an American migrant's suicide, and "Darkness Visible" - about Styron's own fight with lifelong Major Depressive Disorder). In the 1960s Styron shared a deep and respectful friendship with acclaimed black writer James Baldwin, who in an interview at the time of the novel's release was quoted saying "If (Styron) were just darker it would be Styron, not myself, who would be the most famous black writer in America. Bill's going to catch it from both black AND white." It is a loss to both blacks and whites, and really everyone who desires reading literature that whitewashes the past and is cowardly in confronting uncomfortable historical facts. It is our loss this book isn't more widely read and studied today.

Plot summary

The time is November 1831. African American slave Nat Turner sits in a Virginia jail awaiting execution for his crimes. Nat led a slave rebellion which ended in the deaths of dozens of white people as well as many of his own closest friends. Thomas Gray, a smug, oily prosecuting attorney, urges Nat to "confess" his crimes and make peace with God. Nat begins to think back on his past life and tells the novel in a series of flashbacks.

Nat's first master was Samuel Turner, a wealthy Virginia aristocrat who believed in educating his slaves. Nat learned to read and write and also became a skilled carpenter. Unfortunately, when he was still a child Nat's mother was brutally raped by an Irish overseer while the master was away. This traumatic experience gives Nat both a burning hatred of white people and a secret revulsion from women's bodies and sex.

Samuel Turner has vaguely promised Nat his freedom, but through a series of misunderstandings Nat is sold instead to an impoverished preacher named Reverend Eppes. Eppes is a filthy, drooling homosexual who is obsessed with young boys, and he is determined to make Nat "pleasure" him at the earliest opportunity. Though Nat is not especially interested in young women at this point, he finds Eppes physically distasteful and shies away from physical contact. Discouraged, Eppes soon sells young Nat to a pair of cruel redneck farmers who brutally whip the frightened, timid slave and treat him like an animal. This intensifies his growing hostility towards whites.

After bouncing around different masters for several years, Nat finally ends up as the property of a decent, hard-working farmer named Travis. Travis allows Nat to do skilled work as a carpenter, read his Bible, and preach to other slaves. During his religious fasts deep in the deserted woods, Nat begins to have strange visions of black and white angels fighting in the sky. Gradually he comes to believe these visions mean he is to lead the black race in a holy war to destroy all whites.

Complications arise, however, when Nat meets Margaret Whitehead, the beautiful, vivacious daughter of a wealthy widow who lives nearby. Though her family owns many slaves, high-spirited Margaret opposes slavery and openly admires Nat's preaching. Gradually the two of them become friends, though Nat is haunted by the fear that if his plans succeed lovely Margaret must die.

With several loyal slaves behind him, Nat finally launched his rebellion in late August 1831. This is a time when most wealthy whites are away on vacation, which will make it easier for the slaves to seize weapons and attack the nearby town of Jerusalem. From the very beginning, however, Nat's rebellion goes all wrong. His recruits get drunk and waste precious time plundering and raping. A crazed, axe-wielding, sex-obsessed slave named Will begins ridiculing Nat's leadership and attempting to seize control of the tiny slave army. Nat himself, unexpectedly sickened by the sight of blood and the screams of his white victims, begins to doubt both his mission and God's plan for his life.

The final crisis occurs as the slaves storm the Whitehead plantation. In a tragic twist, Margaret and her sisters have not gone away on vacation after all. Filled with unreasoning hatred, Will the axe-wielding maniac slays all the white women but Margaret, openly taunting Nat and daring him to prove his black manhood to the rest of the recruits. With a heavy heart, Nat grabs his sword and chases Margaret into a nearby field, where he slays her with great reluctance. As the breath leaves her body, the pure young maiden sighs her forgiveness for her unwilling executioner.

Back in the jail cell, lawyer Gray smugly announces that the hangman is ready to punish Nat for his crimes. As he concludes their final interview, he asks the failed black leader if he has any regrets for having caused so much suffering and death.

Literary significance and criticism

Despite defenses by notable African-American authors Ralph Ellison and James Baldwin, the novel was strongly criticized by many African Americans. Styron's portrayal of a legendary black resistance leader as a reluctant warrior who bumbles every attack and fumbles his way to total defeat generated enormous resentment. No less offensive to many black readers was the narrator's flattering portrayal of many of the novel's slaveowners, such as the "saintly" Samuel Turner. The character of Margaret Whitehead, in particular, seemed to enrage black readers, as she is permitted to flirt with Nat and chatter on endlessly about her love for poor downtrodden blacks while remaining sunnily unaware of her slave-owning status. For much of the novel, Nat sighs over the slim, virginal blonde like a love-struck adolescent, while showing little or no interest in women of his race.

Issues of class divided readers as well. While the white slaveowners in the novel, especially the wealthy ones, are represented as generous, courteous, and decent, poor whites are held up to ridicule as simpletons and deviants. Turner and his supporters (particularly the scene-stealing, scenery-chewing madman Will, who many readers saw as a thinly disguised version of black rock and roll pioneer Little Richard) are caricatured as disturbed, monstrous figures. Nat and his rival Will are both continually shown fantasizing about sexually assaulting white women. Critics took issue with Styron using the "myth of the black rapist", as portraying black men as prone to sexual violence against white women. Suspected sexual assault was a longstanding racist stereotype used as rhetorical justification for lynching black men.

To address these concerns, ten black intellectuals wrote essays criticizing the work, collected in William Styron's Nat Turner: Ten Black Writers Respond (1968). Elsewhere, historian Eugene D. Genovese defended Styron's right to imagine Turner as a fictional character.

In 1968, despite protests against the novel, Styron's work won critical acclaim and the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

The 1969 novel Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut has Billy Pilgrim in a Manhattan radio studio amongst a group of literary critics there "to discuss whether the novel was dead or not." "One of them said that it would be a fine time to bury the novel now that a Virginian, one hundred years after Appomattox, had written Uncle Tom's Cabin" – a reference to Styron's novel.

The 1971 Italian Mondo docudrama Goodbye Uncle Tom has a section featuring the book The Confessions of Nat Turner and Nat Turner's slave rebellion.

Bill Clinton has cited the novel as one of his favorite books.

Further reading

• Clarke, John Henrik, ed. William Styron's Nat Turner: Ten Black Writers Respond. Boston: Beacon Press, 1968.
• Genovese, Eugene D. "The Nat Turner Case", review of William Styron's Nat Turner: Ten Black Writers Respond, The New York Review of Books, 11.4 (September 12, 1968).
• Mellard, James M. "This Unquiet Dust: The Problem of History in Styron's The Confessions of Nat Turner", Mississippi Quarterly, 36.4 (Fall 1983), pp. 525–43.
• Ryan, Tim A. "From Tara to Turner: Slavery and Slave Psychologies in American Fiction and History, 1945–1968", Calls and Responses: The American Novel of Slavery since Gone with the Wind. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2008.

External links

• Photos of the first edition of The Confessions of Nat Turner