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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What does Nat wonder about after sentencing?
(a) Saving Hark.
(b) Stealing a Bible.
(c) Escaping.
(d) Redemption.

2. What warning, if any, was given for the insurrection?
(a) There was no warning given.
(b) A villager overheard two slaves planning, but didn't take it seriously.
(c) One of the participating slaves told his wife.
(d) Written plans were discovered, but too late.

3. Where is Nat found to be hiding?
(a) In the woods.
(b) In a cave.
(c) Under a log.
(d) In a swamp.

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

5. What reason does Gray give in his introduction for publishing Nat's confessions?
(a) To create a record for posterity.
(b) To write an abolitionist tract.
(c) For the gratification of public curiosity.
(d) To pay off his debts.

Short Answer Questions

1. According to Gray's "Introduction" people in the Southampton area were __________.:

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

3. According to Gray, how many slave uprisings had there been in the area prior to Nat Turner's?

4. How does Gray refer to himself in the introduction?

5. What does Gray think should have led the band of slaves to greater efforts?

Short Essay Questions

1. 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.

2. By the middle of Part 1, readers have met four white people: Gray, Kitchen, Miss Maria Pope, and Jeremiah Cobb. None of them are described positively. Why might that be? Since the book is supposedly written from Nat's point of view, why might he only describe white people (to this point in the book) in negative terms?

3. 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?

4. Describe the world that Nat lived in from a slave's perspective. Now describe it from a white person's perspective.

5. 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?

6. In the introduction, Gray refers to the insurrection as a "conspiracy." Do you agree with that term? Why or why not?

7. Part 1 is told partly in the court as Nat's sentence is being handed down and partly through flashbacks to earlier times in Nat's life. Why might Styron have opened the book this way? What purpose does it serve?

8. In Part 1, Gray reads back Nat's account of the killings, and Nat yells at him to stop. Why did Nat say that? Did he feel remorse? Nat says, "We done what had to be done!" Was he was talking about his "visions" and what they told him, or what Nat, personally, felt needed to be done?

9. Gray says that all the other insurgents who were examined tried to exculpate themselves. What does that mean? And why Nat didn't do it?

10. In the Introduction, Gray talks about an "annexed certificate of the County Court of Southampton" to prove the authenticity of Nat's "confession." Yet no one from the court, besides Gray, heard Nat's statements. Why might Gray have included the certificate?

(see the answer keys)

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