The Confessions of Nat Turner is a 1967 novel by William Styron.
It is a history of Nat Turner's slave rebellion
in 1831. As the story opens Nat Turner is in chains and facing his imminent trial and execution. A lawyer named Thomas Gray comes to visit Nat and record his story. This Framing Device allows Turner's story to play out in a series of flashbacks. Nat Turner is born into slavery in 1800 on a plantation owned by the Turner family in Virginia. He lives a life that is filled with the degradations and savagery inherent to the concept of chattel slavery—in one scene he witnesses his mother being raped by a white overseer—but by his own admission has it better than some, being a house servant in Virginia who was adequately fed and clothed, as opposed to a field hand picking cotton in an Alabama summer.
Samuel Turner and his family teach young Nat how to read and write as a sort of experiment. Then Sam Turner, who puts on the airs of a forward-thinking man that realizes slavery is an abomination, promises Nat that he will free him and allow him to work as a carpenter. However, a decline in Mr. Turner's fortunes as depression strikes Virginia leads him to sell off the rest of his slaves (his most valuable asset) and carelessly leave Nat in the care of a slovenly minister before heading off to Alabama. The minister, one Rev. Epps, reneges on Samuel Turner's promise of freedom and sells Nat to another master. Eventually, the boiling hatred for white people caused by Nat's life as a slave, and specifically the broken promise by Sam Turner, combined with Nat's encyclopedic knowledge of the Old Testament, brings him to a vision in which he senses he will lead a great slave rebellion.
Compare The Birth of a Nation, a cinematic adaptation of Nat Turner's life and his slave rebellion.
Tropes:
- Alcohol Hic: Jeremiah Cobb, a visitor to the Travis estate, is so drunk he can barely stand, and he hiccups. Nat relates how Cobb lost his whole family, wife and two daughters, to typhoid fever, then fell down the stairs and broke his leg, an injury that never healed properly and causes him constant pain. Later, Cobb will be a judge at Nat's trial.
- Artistic License – History: Although the book is broadly historically accurate, with the usual author's license filling in unknown details, William Styron made one major change. The real Nat Turner is believed to have had a wife, although historians know little about her and aren't even sure about her name. No such character appears in the book; Nat is instead celibate and sexually frustrated.
- Celibate Hero: Nat Turner. The only sexual experience he ever has with another person comes with a male slave. Afterwards Nat feels compelled to purify himself and ask forgiveness from God. Nat denies himself sexual pleasure as he becomes dedicated to his "mission", partly because he feels that it would distract him from following the will of God, and partly because most of his sexual desires focus on white women.
- Depraved Homosexual: The Rev. Epps, a gross, sweaty, dirty man who takes temporary custody of Nat after Samuel Turner moves to Alabama. When he first takes possession of Nat he makes a lot of overt comments about how Black Is Bigger in Bed. Nat ignores him, and instead of pursuing the matter the Rev. Epps subjects him to a servitude of hard manual labor.
- Disappeared Dad: Nat relates how his father, a house slave, ran away after being struck in the face by a white man he was serving at dinner. Nothing more of his father's fate is known. (This is also true of the Real Life Turner.)
- Forced Prize Fight: A drunk Nathaniel Francis, just about the most vicious and cruel slave master there is, forces his slaves Will and Sam to fight each other for his own amusement, promising that if either refuses, he'll be whipped. Will and Sam have beaten the hell out of each other by the time Francis wanders off. Both slaves join Nat's rebellion.
- Fully-Clothed Nudity: Margaret Whitehead comes into a room while she's partway through changing, and she is without a skirt. She's wearing "frilly ankle length pantalettes" and in point of fact is almost completely covered by clothing, but "the white pants make her seem wantonly unclothed". Nat, who has already confessed a sexual attraction to Margaret, is hit by a strong wave of lust.
- Incorruptible Pure Pureness: Margaret Whitehead, the sweet, innocent, beautiful young woman who is the daughter of the Whitehead family that sometimes rents out Nat. She is kind and gentle and is even a secret abolitionist. She even bursts into tears when their wagon runs over a turtle.
- Kangaroo Court: Nat is startled to learn that Mr. Gray, his lawyer, is taking down his confession to give to the prosecution. Gray states plainly that Nat is going to be hung no matter what so it doesn't matter.
- Karma Houdini: Nathaniel Francis, the cruelest of all the slave owners in the novel survives the rebellion.
- The Lancer: Hark, Nat's best friend and the first recruit to Nat's mission to kill white people. He's second in command when the revolt actually starts.
- Low Clearance: Nat's friend Hark is running in terror from an enraged Putnam Moore when he is suddenly thrown flat on his back, having run directly into a clothesline.
- Maiden Aunt: Miss Maria Pope, Mr. Travis's half-sister who lives with the family. She loathes black people and treats them cruelly, and Nat suspects it's because she's a virgin in her forties.
- Malicious Misnaming: Putnam Moore, the nasty, obnoxious young son of Nat's owner Mr. Moore, only calls Nat "the n***r", long after Nat is well aware that Putnam knows his name.
- No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Nat is so rattled after murdering Margaret Whitehead that, at the next plantation they destroy, he lets a 14-year-old girl get away, despite how he could have caught her easily and how he had earlier determined to kill all the white people in his path. Later he realizes that this Moment of Weakness was his destruction, in that the white girl made it to safety and raised the alarm, which allowed the whites of the region to rally and stop Nat and his men before they could get to the town of Jerusalem and the armory.
- Overly-Nervous Flop Sweat:
- When Rev. Epps the Depraved Homosexual is making thinly veiled sexual advances towards Nat, Nat can't help but note the sweat pouring down Epps's face.
- When Miss Caty, Margaret's mother, is nattering on about getting Nat to fix the furniture and how she'd like to buy him, he is overcome with a wave of hatred so strong that "little pinpoint blisters of sweat" break out on his face.
- Raging Stiffie: The sight of Major Ridley's fiancée, a beautiful white woman from the North, so excites Nat that he has a vivid rape fantasy and gets a Raging Stiffie that causes another slave to laugh when he sees it. Nat is humiliated.
- Rape as Drama: As a boy Turner witnesses his mother being raped by a white overseer. The scene colors the rest of the novel as Turner is unable to deal with his own sexual urges.
- Rebel Leader: Nat Turner, who leads a slave rebellion in the Tidewater region of Virginia.
- Sex Is Evil, and I Am Horny: Nat is celibate and hates white people, but at the same time he's strongly attracted to Margaret Whitehead, and especially hates her because of this.
- Shown Their Work: Thomas Gray was a real person who did in fact produce a pamphlet called The Confessions of Nat Turner; the pamphlet is the main historical source about Nat Turner's revolt even though its accuracy is not certain. Turner's father really is believed to have run away. He really was taught to read and write, and he really did become a lay preacher. He actually did confess to only one murder himself, that being a young woman named Margaret Whitehead that he bludgeoned with a fence post. Possibly most surprisingly, the Total Eclipse of the Plot actually happened. The real Turner did in fact witness an annular eclipse in February 1831 that he took as God's sign to make his rebellion.
- Slave Liberation: Nat Turner's goal, to lead a revolt that will gather a mass following and eventually lead to liberation. His plan quickly fails, because most slaves do not join him, and some even fight against him on the side of their owners.
- Starbucks Skin Scale: One of Nat's recruits, a slave named Sam, is a "mulatto" with "yellow skin". Nat values him because Sam's lighter skin tone draws respect from the other slaves.
- A Storm Is Coming: While driving home Margaret Whitehead and her mother, Nat sees thunderclouds rolling, promising a storm. He closes his eyes and prays to God for strength in the battle that will come soon.
- Sympathetic Slave Owner: Played with, sometimes played straight, sometimes subverted. Samuel Turner is initially portrayed as this. He gives his slaves adequate food, clothing, and shelter, and forbids anyone to beat them. He takes on the education of little Nat and, after Nat learns to read, promises him his freedom. But Turner's lip service to the idea of helping blacks is shown to be insincere; when he runs into financial difficulties he sells off all his other slaves, while he simply forgets about his promise to Nat, leaving him in the care of Rev. Epps until Epps sells Nat to a different master. Nat also admits that his last owners, the Travises, treated him reasonably well, even as Nat planned their murder. Young Margaret Whitehead is the most straightforward example, a kindhearted and pure young woman who even goes so far as to tell Nat she thinks "darkies" should be free—but she does not actually own any slaves of her own.
- This trope is thoroughly averted in cases of other slave owners, who are savagely cruel. One slave master gets drunk and forces two of his slaves to fight in public.
- A Taste of the Lash: Nat is struck in the face by the whip of Moore, the illiterate cretin to whom he is sold by the Rev. Epps. It is a shock for Nat, who was never whipped when he was enslaved by Samuel Turner.
- Title Drop: Thomas Gray points to the testimony he's taken from Nat in jail and says "The answer lies here, in the confessions of Nat Turner!".
- Total Eclipse of the Plot: In February 1831 Nat witnesses an annular eclipse of the sun. He takes this as a sign from God that he should go forward with his rebellion. (This actually happened in Real Life).
- Unintelligible Accent: When Major Ridley's fiancée arrives to Jerusalem, she tries to ask a free black man named Arnold for directions. Arnold misunderstands her question, but it makes no difference because he talks with an accent so thick that the woman can't understand a word he's saying.
- Where da White Women At?: A running theme and a part of the book that caused a lot of anger among black intellectuals and critics in 1967. Nat Turner, simply put, has a fetish for white women. When, in his youth, he goes off to masturbate, he imagines white women. He is powerfully attracted to beautiful, virginal young Margaret Whitehead and on two different occasions is barely able to restrain himself from raping her. In another scene he sees an attractive older white woman in a state of emotional distress, and has a fantasy of raping her so vivid he gets a Raging Stiffie. Then there's a slave named Will, one of the most aggressive of Nat's followers, who specifically states that he is joining the revolt because he wants to rape white ladies. Nat forbids it.
- Whole Episode Flashback: Nat Turner, being held in chains, remembering his life and his rebellion in a series of flashbacks.
- Would Hurt a Child: Nat Turner's followers did not spare the children of slaveowners. Nat even ordered the murder of Travis's infant son, saying "Nits breed lice!"
