Word: graying
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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CAROL LEE GRAY New Haven, Conn...
Styron had only two significant sources about the insurrection--The Southampton Insurrection by William S. Drewry and Nat's Confessions, which were written by a lawyer named Thomas Gray while Nat Turner awaited his trial. Drewry, who was of pro-slavery leanings, reconstructed what Styron calls an accurate chronology of the insurrection. The 20-page Confessions describes the rebel deeds and a few of Nat's thoughts. Otherwise, there is nothing. Little is known of Nat's background and early years. Therefore Styron, the novelist, has the freedom to speculate on the intermingled miseries, hopes, frustrations, and inner rages which...
Styron's book is spoken by Nat as he lies in jail, beaten, chained, freezing, starving, and waiting to be hanged. The progression of time from the start to the end of the novel is short--it covers a few passing moments with Gray in jail, at the trial, and then in the jail again before the execution. In between these events are Nat's recollections of his own past. Styron's weaving of past and present is complex but in no way confusing. It is a great credit to Styron's art that he can leap about chronologically...
...tilled his fields from dawn to dusk and helped make America safe for democracy holds a fond place in most of our hearts. As America grew bigger and richer, the story continues, so did the farms, and the farmers. It is today's conventional wisdom that farmers wear gray flannel overalls and take care of their farms with three or four gleaming machines...
...Discriminatory." Such a record would have been hard to predict back in the fall of 1817, when the school was founded with six students and one professor. In fact, as late as 1870, the Boston law firm of Ropes & Gray was saying that Harvard Law was "almost a disgrace to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts." That year, however, things changed. Christopher Langdell became dean, and he brought with him the case method-the innovative inspiration that has been the cornerstone of legal education ever since. He viewed the law as a science, with a series of progressively dependent rules. These rules...