Word: slaving
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Despite his own careful pains to avoid sounding too intelligent, Nat became disgusted and enraged when his fellow Negroes ingratiated on whites. Take this passage, for example, with Nat, Hark (another slave), and old Judge Cobb...
Styron uses the story of Nat Turner to describe what it was like for a man to live as a slave from day to day. He must relate the story through the eyes of the rebellious slave, thereby intruding on the consciousness of a black man. But the book does not purport to provide a deep analysis of the slave mind, nor does it intend to present a metaphor for Negro rioters in 1967. Styron is simply creating a work of art which portrays the psychological effects of slavery...
Styron's development of the relationship between Samuel Turner and Nat, if not among the most imaginative parts of the book, is certainly among the most sensitive and interesting. The slave boy viewed his master in awe, as almost divine. The master, in turn, when he saw a young spark of interest, gave Nat the encouragement and opportunity to learn to read...
...gradually gave him responsibilities. Styron bases Samuel Turner on John Hartwell Cocke, who was a leading spokesman for emancipation in the Virginia legislautre of the early 1880's. (Ironically, Samuel Turner's efforts to educate and "housebreak" Nat ultimately resulted in the revolt that doomed the growing movement for slave emancipation in Virginia.) Styron takes the philosophy of Cocke and puts it directly into Samuel Turner's mouth. Turner's discussion with two ministers are, word-for-word, from Cocke's personal letters...
...whose real father ran away when he was an infant, identified with his master and set himself apart from the Sambos--the field Negroes. He felt disgust at having to use their outhouse. But, as one slave infomred him, "Yo' ass black jes' like mine, honey chile." In this way Styron shows how Nat's relationship with Samuel Turner was tormented and complicated; the condition became radically worse when Nat was denied his promised freedom by a Baptist preacher in whose hands Samuel Turner had entrusted...