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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

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

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

3. In the introduction, what does Gray state Nat's mind "first became"?

4. In Part One, Nat tells Gray that the Lord told him to confess so that "all nations will know." What was the other reason the Lord gave Nat for confessing?

5. Why does Gray say he published the Confessions?

Short Essay Questions

1. 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?

2. 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?

3. 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?

4. In Part 1, Nat gets very angry at Hark and chastises him for being so subservient to the whites. But Hark is a slave. Hark is doing what the whites expect, and being well treated because of it. Was Nat justified in what he did? Why or why not?

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

6. 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?

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. 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?

10. When Gray addresses the court, he blames "pure Negro cowardice" as a partial reason for the rebellion's failure, but then later in that same paragraph, Gray describes devoted slaves fighting "as bravely as any man" against Nat and his band. Why is he saying these things? Is he trying to confuse the justices?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

What event or events in the book were a "turning point" for Nat that led him toward rebellion? Describe the event(s) from the book that you identify, and explain why you believe it or they moved Nat down the path toward killing whites.

Essay Topic 2

In Part 1, Samuel Turner discusses things with Nat on his ride to Jerusalem as if Nat were an equal. Yet he refers to Nat in that same discussion as a "darky," a derogatory term. Describe other instances in the book when a white person was being derogatory to a black, but was unaware of this. Are there instances when a white speaks to a black in a derogatory manner and is aware of it? How did whites use their conversations with blacks in various manners in the book, and what result were they expecting? Be sure to use at least one specific example from the book in your discussion.

Essay Topic 3

Nat says "I lived as if straddling two worlds of the mind and spirit" as he's planning the attack while trying to continue his daily life. How does Nat's education also leave him "straddling two worlds"? Can you find other examples of Nat having a foot in two opposing worlds? Can he reconcile these? If so, how?

(see the answer keys)

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