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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 type of hinges are on the privy door?
(a) Leather.
(b) Wood.
(c) Steel.
(d) Rubber.

2. What book did Nat steal from the Turner library?
(a) The plantation's record book.
(b) The Life and Death of Mr. Badman.
(c) His master's Bible.
(d) A book of maps of the northern states.

3. What does Nat see as a good omen right before he returns to the farm from his "sanctuary" after revealing his plans to his core group of followers?
(a) He finds an old sword in the woods.
(b) A king snake sunning itself nearby.
(c) The call of an eagle from a nearby tree.
(d) A new slave joins the group.

4. How did Benjamin die?
(a) A tree crushed him.
(b) He drowned in the swamp.
(c) He got lost and died in the forest.
(d) He fell off a horse and broke his neck.

5. After five days in the woods with Hark, what happens to Nat?
(a) He decides to run away.
(b) He gets lost and can't find his way home.
(c) He sees a vision.
(d) He witnesses a murder.

Short Answer Questions

1. Why can't Nat carry out the rebellion on the date he originally chose?

2. According to a preacher that Nat heard, he that increaseth knowledge increaseth ________.

3. What is camphene?

4. After Nat says his final prayer before beginning the insurrection, what does he do?

5. What does Nat compare his life as a slave child to?

Short Essay Questions

1. Miss Nell calls Nat "you smart little tar baby" in Part 1. Please explain what is meant by that name, and how it compares to what a white child would be called for the same reason.

2. 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?

3. When Nat imagines his grandmother's thoughts as a captured Coromantee slave girl, he describes Marse Samuel's smile as looking to her like "fiendish smirk." Why would he would describe the kindest master he had in this way?

4. Why might Part 3 be titled "Study War"? Is it appropriate?

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. In Part 2, Nat talks about Samuel Turner's tampering with a slave's destiny by educating him. Immediately afterward, he talks about what his life might have been like if he had not been the subject of Marse Samuel's "experiment." What do you think of this description of his might-have-been life? Is it something that appeals to him?

7. One of the slaves chained by the drover tells Nat that he's "just like him." Do you think this is true? Why or why not?

8. 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?

9. 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?

10. 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?

(see the answer keys)

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