Holt 1 In the book The Confessions of Nat Turner, author William Styron explores the time of slavery in the South, and how being a slave affects the historical protagonist, Nat Turner. The book itself is fictional yet the uprising of slaves in 1831 was a historical event, with Nat Turner as the actual leader. Styron wrote the book based on actual facts. The book focuses on Turner’s confessions; his past, and most importantly, his religion, and how he stayed a religious man until the end. Although Styron shows Turner’s cruelty in taking so many lives, nevertheless, he also shows a tender, loving, intelligent, and deeply religious side of Turner through his spirituality and relationships with others to prove that not all who commit murder are completely without compassion and love.…show more content… Turner receives a death sentence, and compiles a list of confessions from which his lawyer, Gray, reads at his trial. In the confessions Styron takes the reader back to Turner’s past, and his motives for the murder. Turner’s first master, Samuel Turner, felt compassion for slaves and treated Nat Turner to a privileged life, for a slave, at his plantation Turner’s Mill. Samuel Turner realized what an intelligent young boy he held in his power and did everything which he could to ensure that Nat could become educated. “ Samuel Turner got Nat a job working as an apprentice for a carpenter, known by Nat as “Goat”. However while Samuel Turner was away Nat witnessed the rape of Samuel’s wife by an Irish supervisor. This greatly affected Turner and the way which he viewed white
