View a FREE sample

This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. According to Nat's statements, the insurrection was ______.
(a) Confined to two counties.
(b) Confined to five farms.
(c) Spread across twelve miles.
(d) Local.

2. While in church with Hark, Nat makes plans to gather with other blacks where?
(a) At the graveyard.
(b) Near the creek behind the church.
(c) In the alley next to the courthouse.
(d) Behind the general store.

3. What does Gray feel that Nat's rebellion will further the cause of?
(a) Abolition.
(b) Voting rights for blacks.
(c) Anti-abolition.
(d) Easing restrictions on blacks.

4. How does Gray say Nat will be punished?
(a) Being tarred and feathered.
(b) The guillotine.
(c) A firing squad.
(d) The gallows.

5. What does Gray state that Nat's confessions demonstrate about the laws?
(a) How they help locate runaway slaves.
(b) How they protect the white slaveholders.
(c) How they are unfair to the slaves.
(d) How they restrain the slaves.

Short Answer Questions

1. How do Putnam and MIss Maria punish Hark?

2. What is an insurrection?

3. When did Nat first begin to plan his rebellion?

4. While in jail, about how many blacks does Hark say were killed while Nat hid?

5. What moniker did Gray assign to Nat Turner?

Short Essay Questions

1. In Part 1, when Nat is cleaning rabbits with Hark and Jeremiah Cobb stops to talk after getting a drink, Nat becomes nervous when he feels Cobb's question needs an answer. Nat doesn't want to give away a hint of what he's planning, but there's something else that pulls him in two directions when he considers whether to answer Cobb or not. Describe why Nat is so worried.

2. Prejudice is "an unfavorable opinion or feeling formed beforehand or without knowledge, thought or reason". (Dictionary.com) Do you think Gray displays prejudice toward Nat? Toward blacks in general? How? List specific examples from the Introduction.

3. The Introduction opens in the jail, so the reader already know Nat has been caught. Why might the author have used this technique? Why not choose some other method of telling the story?

4. Prejudice is "an unfavorable opinion or feeling formed beforehand or without knowledge, thought or reason". (Dictionary.com) Do you think Nat displays prejudice toward Gray? Toward whites in general? How? List specific examples from Part 1.

5. At the end of the introduction, it states that the confession was read to Nat, and when asked if he had anything further to say, he said no. The rebellion was a complicated affair that involved planning. Why do you think Nat declined to say anything further?

6. What do readers know about Gray from the Introduction? What is implied, or what can be inferred from what Gray says? From this information, what kind of person might Gray be?

7. Read Nat's description of Gray when they first meet in Part 1. Read Nat's thoughts about Gray immediately after the description. What does Nat think and/or feel about Gray? Does that have an effect on Nat's decision to confess? What does he think whites expect of him?

8. In the "Author's Note", Styron says he has "rarely departed from the known facts about Nat Turner and the revolt of which he was the leader." But the written text of the Confession is only around twenty pages. This book is over 400 pages long. Surely this can't be all fact; Styron himself says he allowed himself the "utmost freedom" in reconstructing the events. So which is true? Do you think this book will be mostly fact or fiction?

9. In Part 1, Nat says "a white man's discomfiture, observed on the sly, has always been a Negro's richest delight." Is this true? If so, why? If not, why would Nat think such a thing? Either way, what does that quote suggest about Nat?

10. While in jail, Nat describes Kitchen and thinks of him in one way, yet speaks to him in a completely different manner. Describe the differences and what this tells readers about Nat.

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 1,394 words (approx. 5 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample