ARGUMENTS
THE TURNER THESIS
Michael Thelwell
Dr. Robert Coles's review of William Styron's
Confessions of
Nat Turner
1
dismisses certain very real problems presented by this work
which, according to Styron himself, is "less an historical novel ... than
a meditation on history." Dr. Coles regards questions about the book's
"psychological accuracy or historical inaccuracy" as irrelevant, and
does not believe that "it is the validity or historical accuracy that count
all that much," yet goes on to predict that "the book will make history"
and finds "it all valid." But Dr. Coles cannot have it both ways.
The contradictory nature and strangely defensive tone of the re–
view seem to derive from Dr. Coles's determination to endorse at least
the effort if not the accomplishment of the novel. While he appears to
be
aware, as earlier reviewers were not, of certain racial issues raised
by the book, he never discusses them. As a psychologist who has worked
with Southern Negroes (the anecdote about the Mississippi sharecropper
which comprises the first third of the review establishes his credentials)
and who presumably knows the "Negro mind," he simply pronounces
the book "valid."
But the question of historical accuracy cannot be lightly dismissed
since in the terms the author sets up and in which the book has been
generally accepted and is being read, one of the major claims made for
the book is a responsibility to "the essential truths of history." And this
is precisely the issue, not the changing of one or two of the known
facts of Turner's life. What is objectionable in the novel is the entire
process of selection, invention and emphasis in the use of materials
surrounding Turner's life, and the clear manner in which these distor–
tions cumulatively serve to present a peculiarly southern view of black
history not supported by the known facts.
Why is it that most black readers find the characterization of Nat
Turner in the novel unacceptable, while most whites, to judge from
the reViews, find him perfectly credible and perhaps even comforting?
1
PR,
Spring 1968.
