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MICHAEL THELWELL
the young Nat mentions is a driver, and his very occupation means that
his sense of self-worth is a gift of the whites.
On the other hand, all of the inflated,. self-congratulatory, senti–
mental white myths about their own genteel and chivalric past are ac–
cepted by Styron's Nat, who views his master "in terms of such patriarch–
al and spiritual grandeur as glows out from Moses on the Mount." To
him white ladies possess "the disembodied, transparent beauty of an
imagined angel," and appear to float "in an immaculate effulgence of
purity and perfection." His master's household (in which it is not
clear that the historical Turner ever set foot) where the First Families
of Virginia gather for formal balls and feasts, and where he is "pam–
pered, fondled, nudged, pinched" and educated as the "black jewel" and
"spoiled child" is presented to us through Turner's eyes as a virtual
temple· to the "lost" elegance and gentility of the golden age of south–
ern chivalry, a world peopled by patriarchs, demigods and angels. (That
southerners wish to think that their slaves viewed their masters in
these terms is clear, but that the slaves in fact did so is highly ques–
tionable. The young Nat Turner was not too awed by his master's
patriarchal grandeur to organize raiding forays against his property.)
It is this mythic version of southern history that forms the ideo–
logical skeleton of the novel, and all incidents and detail flow logically
from it. Turner is isolated from blacks, and influenced and motivated
by "white" considerations. This denies the tradition of independent
black leadership reported by Stampp and typified by Turner, since in
the novel his authority is based on his master's favor and preference,
and those attributes coming from his exposure to white influences.
Turner hates and despises his blackness and aspires to the culture and
enlightenment of his masters. His rebellion is a consequence of the in–
evitable frustration of these aspirations.
The old sexual myth, which Mr. Styron himself questioned in his
piece in
Harpers,
becomes a dominant theme. Turner is an onanist
who scorns women of his own race, and represses his lust for white
women. In his case it is not white "blood" that generated his militancy
- the standard explanation of earlier generations of southern writers–
but his exposure to white "culture," and his sublimated sexuality.
General Hark, the "black Apollo" and "the most enthusiastic and
intelligent conspirator" who Drewry believed took the name of an Afri–
can warrior, becomes a dumb, shuffling darky, reduced to quivering
paralysis by the sheer presence of whites, and terrified by a white wo–
man and boy.
Brantley, the "respectable" overseer converted by Turner, becomes
a retarded, child-molesting pederast, which apparently is the price he
pays for abandoning his class position and violating the protocol which
