Word: nat
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...another way, however, Nat himself resembles today's Negro. Unlike most slaves, Nat received a sense of identity through education and the promise of freedom; he lived in his master's house and saw the good things he was missing but soon might possess with his freedom. His hopes were taken away, and, like Negroes who anticipated equality after the 1954 Supreme Court decision, he was left with frustrations and bitterness. Violence and furious retribution climaxed the frustrations and allowed the rebels to find a sense of dignity...
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...
...many monologues which weave throughout the novel, Styron has Nat think in an eloquent, clear, 20th-century style. But in conversation, Nat employs a number of dialects which only a Virginia-raised craftsman like Styron could create...
True to the South's Protestant tradition, Nat's fundamentalism is based on the Old Testament. He quotes frequently the verses of Isaiah. With white people, he talks in a subdued nigger-rhetoric fitting for a pious black Baptist minister (which he is). With other houses slaves his tone is slightly more relaxed, and with field Negroes (whom he holds in disdain) it becomes much more Sambo-ish. The juxtaposition of Nat speaking in several of his roles can at times be very amusing, and at other times--as when he speaks in an inferior style before less intelligent white...