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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. Which of Nat's followers was deaf?
(a) Nelson.
(b) Hark.
(c) Nat.
(d) Henry.

2. Moore's farm is next to whose?
(a) Mr. Pemberton's.
(b) Joseph Travis.
(c) Reverend Eppes.
(d) Major Thomas Ridley.

3. What was Hark best-known for at the Travis farm?
(a) Being able to read.
(b) Running away.
(c) Being "strong as an ox".
(d) Getting married.

4. As Nat approaches the age of thirty, what does he notice about the area in which he lives?
(a) His fellow slaves are much more miserable.
(b) His master is getting meaner.
(c) A bit of prosperity is returning.
(d) The drought is destroying everything.

5. What term does Nat use to describe Hark's marriage to Tiny?
(a) Said their vows.
(b) Said three Hail Marys .
(c) Danced at dawn.
(d) Jumped over the broomstick.

Short Answer Questions

1. Who eventually catches Nat with the stolen book?

2. Shortly after the trial, what happens to Nate?

3. Nat remembers a visitor to the Turner household when he was about twelve. What does Nat remember the visitor describing?

4. What is a smudge pot used for?

5. Nat's father "ran off" from the Turner household. Why?

Short Essay Questions

1. After Nathaniel Francis forces Will and Sam to fight, Nat feels called to preach for the first time. Why do you think that was the event that brought Nat out in public as a preacher? Quote at least one reason from the book.

2. In Part 3 when Nat goes on his five-day fast, he begs the Lord to give him a sign and believed the Lord answered his request. What does Nat describe as being the answer to his request of the Lord?

3. In Part 3, when Nat is owned by Thomas Moore, he says that he fell into the kind of save work that he had believed before could "not ever become my lot, not in a thousand lifetimes." Yet now it had become his lot. How did Nat react to that? How does this turning point relate to his earlier childhood and education, as well as his eventual killing spree?

4. When Nat talks with Mrs. Whitehead in Part 3 after tracing the map, she alternately praises him and treats him as property, stating that she'd offered one thousand dollars for him. How did that make Nat feel?

5. After Nat spells the word columbine, he lies awake that night thinking about it. He says it's a dream filled with 'inchoate promise'. What does he mean by that? How can one word be a promise?

6. The story of Hark's escape and eventual return takes up a large section of Part 3. Why might Styron have devoted so much time to this story? What was he trying to show? What do readers learn from Nat's telling of the story?

7. Much of Part 2 is taken up with items from Nat's past. Why was so much of the book spent on the early times in Nat's life, rather than on his planning for the rebellion?

8. After Nat describes his ideas about his grandmother, he switches to describing what he knows about his father--mainly that he ran away, and, at least in Nat's mind, is free now. How does Nat's description of his grandmother differ from his description of his father?

9. After Nat's fast in Part 3, he said there were two events that helped him interpret his vision of the fighting angels as a mandate to kill whites. What were those two events?

10. In Part 2, Nat tells of Little Morning spying on him as a jealous response to the realization that Nat could read. This is the first time Nat tells of a negative reaction to his reading and learning. Why might Little Morning have reacted like this?

(see the answer keys)

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