After bouncing around different masters for a number of years, Nat finally ends up as the property of a decent, hard-working farmer named Travis. Though Nat is not especially interested in young women at this point, he finds Eppes physically distasteful and shies away from physical contact. The compelling story ranges over the whole of Nat's Life, reaching its inevitable and shattering climax that bloody day in August. In 1829, David Walker had written Appeai, a pamphlet advocating violent overthrow of slave owners. [3], Styron takes liberties with the historical Nat Turner, whose life is otherwise undocumented. Ryan, Tim A. It is based on The Confessions of Nat Turner: The Leader of the Late Insurrection in Southampton, Virginia, a first-hand account of Turner's confessions published by a local lawyer, Thomas Ruffin Gray, in 1831. The introduction, discussion questions, and author biography that follow are designed to enhance you group's reading of William Styron's The Confessions of Nat Turner. [1] In the historical confessions, Turner claims to have been divinely inspired, charged with a mission from God to lead a slave uprising and destroy the white race. Nat's early years were relatively sheltered, and he didn't learn the harsher realities of slavery firsthand until later; he was even allowed to learn to read and write, and he became something like a household pet. His master and erstwhile father figure, Samuel Turner, had promised to give Nat his freedom when he turned twenty-five. Before moving into a literary examination, here is a brief overview of the historical events surrounding the book. William Lloyd Garrison had just started publishing The Liberator (an abolitionist publication) a few months before Turner’s uprising. For Travis, Nat designed and built several highly ingenious contraptions, which increased Travis' financial wealth. As a slave, Nat was given the last name of the family who owned his parents. After Turner’s execution, Gray published a pamphlet containing Turner’s first-person description of the events leading up to and after the rebellion. Consider the living conditions that slaves had to endure as part of your answer. Over the next two days, Turner joined with a group of free blacks and slaves to kill 55 white people – women and children among them. With a heavy heart, Nat grabs his sword and chases Margaret into a nearby field, where he slays her with great reluctance. Despite protests against the novel, Styron's work won critical acclaim and the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1968. Most of the blacks who had participated in the rebellion were captured, but Turner went on the run, avoiding arrest for two months. The response was swift and fierce. For much of the novel Nat sighs over the slim, virginal blonde like a love-struck adolescent, while showing little or no interest in women of his own race. Free P&P . Over the next two days, Turner joined with a group of free blacksand slaves to kill 55 white people — women and children among them. There are many problems that arise when considering the reliability of Thomas Gray as a narrator. Despite defenses by notable African-American authors Ralph Ellison and James Baldwin, the novel was strongly criticised by many black Americans.