Word: nat
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...propaganda and allegory, whatever the author's disposition toward his subject matter may be. In consequence, aesthetic considerations must take second place to the social and political ones in criticizing such a book. With artistic considerations aside, Mr. Styron's novel is little more than an attempt to demean Nat Turner and the black people. The book fails to make good its claim to historical veracity and perpetuates a large number of anti-black myths and assumptions...
First, Styron totally demeans Nat Turner as a human being and individual. The real Nat Turner's wife was taken from him and sold to another plantation by Turner's owner. In a manner chillingly reminiscent of this slaveholder, Styron refuses to admit her existence and proceeds to misrepresent Turner's entire family life...
...contrast the historical Turner is known to have had a wife and reported to have had a son. Rather than growing up in a Moynihan-model A.D.C. family, Nat Turner knew and loved both of his parents and his grandmother. He was taught to read by his parents. He was regarded with awe and respect by the slaves in the area from the time he was a child...
...from the lonely, white-dominated childhood of Styron's hero, Nat Turner was asked to plan and particiuate in his elder's theft raids against white slave owners...
According to his original confessions, Nat Turner was aloof, but it is clear that he was not removed from, and contemptuous of, his fellows. Indeed, had he in truth been as contemptuous of blacks as Styron portrays, he would hardly have been called on to plan or partake in the theft raids they conducted. Furthermore, he would have been distrusted, disliked, and excluded. In fact, his childhood and youth would have been as desperately lonely, unhappy, and soul-twisting as was that of Styron's creation...