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

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

3. Cobb uses a word to describe the children of slaves. What is that word?
(a) Terrormongers.
(b) Babies.
(c) Pickaninnies.
(d) Ankle biters.

4. Which Biblical prophet did Nat feel "spoke" to him most clearly about the rebellion?
(a) Moses.
(b) Ezekiel.
(c) Noah.
(d) Abraham.

5. What does Gray refer to the insurgent slaves as?
(a) "Heartless heathens set upon vengeance."
(b) The "ebony slaughterers."
(c) A "ravaging band of murderers."
(d) A "band of ferocious miscreants."

Short Answer Questions

1. What is Nat going to be tried for?

2. Hank claimed to be able to tell good white people from bad by:

3. In Part 1, how does Gray refer to Nat?

4. What moniker did Gray assign to Nat Turner?

5. What is Nat's execution date?

Short Essay Questions

1. Styron published this book in 1967, 136 years after Nat Turner's rebellion and during a time of unrest in the United States over equal rights and race relations. In the Author's Note he says "the year 1831 was, simultaneously, a long time ago and only yesterday." What might he mean by that?

2. 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?

3. 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?

4. 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?

5. 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?

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

7. 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?

8. Nat tells Gray in the Introduction, "I don't think you understand about this business and I don't know but whether it's too late to make it all plain". If Gray took down what Nat said and is reading it back to him, why would Nat think Gray didn't understand?

9. 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?

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

(see the answer keys)

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