", Reliegious, strong, tall, brave, headstrong. He claims to have learned to read with no assistance, and he says that religion principally occupied my thoughts (Gray, 5). A deeply religious man, he "therefore studiously avoided mixing in society, and wrapped [him]self in mystery, devoting [his] time to fasting and praying. That was why, he said, he waited for a signand, believing he had seen it, took action. Gray was born in 1800, the same year as Turner. Within a week his pamphlet appeared, and it is estimated over 50,000 copies were sold in the next few months. During a span of approximately thirty-six hours, on August 21-22, a band of enslaved people murdered over fifty unsuspecting white people around Southampton, Virginia. Thomas Ruffin Gray was born in Southampton County, Virginia in the early 1800s. Not long afterward, in 1825, Turner had a second vision: I saw white spirits and black spirits engaged in battle, and the sun was darkenedthe thunder rolled, and the blood flowed in streamsand I heard a voice saying, Such is your luck, such you are called to see, and let it come rough or smooth, you must surely bare it. This spirit confronted Turner again in May 1828: I heard a loud noise in the heavens and the Spirit instantly appeared to me and said the Serpent was loosened, and Christ had laid down the yoke he had borne for the sins of men, and that I should take it on and fight against the Serpent, for the time was fast approaching when the first should be last and the last should be first.. His "Confession," dictated to physician Thomas R. Gray, was taken while he was . He claims that, without being questioned at all, Turner commenced his narrative in the following words (Gray, 5). Compares douglass' fictional story, the heroic slave, with turner's non-fiction document, which depicts black people as insane, fanatical, and barbaric. Ed. With Turner firmly established as author of the Confessionsof Nat Turner and his radical commentary on race and American democracy fully explicated, the text could assume its rightful place in the literary canon of the American Renaissance. When the time came for Gray to interview Turner, Gray recorded his recollections of his life leading up to the rebellion, specifically, Turners experiences with reading and writing, scientific experiments, prophecies and his spiritual influence on the neighborhood slaves. Another interesting thing about the confessions is the speaking style Gray claims Turners confessed the events of the insurgence in. Everything connected with the rebellion was wrapped in mystery, until Nat Turner the leader of the violent and savage band, was captured. Though he may not have been as vicious as Gray portrayed him to be, the description was meant to to bring its object into a field of vision, to make that object speak for itself convincingly and to give it form, character, and tone (Browne, 319). Gray served as Turner's amanuensis, interviewing him over the course of three days, writing down what he said, cross-examining him, and then structuring the narrative as he saw fit. Certainly, Styrons Turner is cruel in his taking of close to sixty lives, but he is nevertheless the poet of the aspirations of a people. Thomas Ruffin Gray (1800 - unknown) was an American attorney who represented several enslaved people during the trials in the wake of Nat Turner's slave rebellion. My Account | With little explanation, he then sold his farmland and most of his enslaved laborers, moved to the county seat of Jerusalem, and embarked on a career in law. Also, Turner thought it was God's will for him to lead. In addition, educating slaves was outlawed. Styron fictionalized a historic character, Nat Turner, but nevertheless remained faithful to the known facts, most of which came from the 1831 Confessions of Nat Turner. Turner begins his story by describing his childhood. The second chapter, Old Times Past: Voices, Dreams, Recollections, is essentially a fictional biography of Turner. The Confessions of Nat Turner - SuperSummary Historians and literary critics subjected the pamphlet to close scrutiny and, in several provocative and pathbreaking studies, suggested radically new possibilities for interpretation. As July 4th approached, he worried himself sick and postponed the revolt. > Some of the reaction to that book, at least as expressed by TIME, now reads as dated: the magazines review of the responses called the black writers blinded by their own racism against Styron, who was white. and our Meanwhile, the book arguably is one of two American literary classics to come from the revolt, the other being The Confessions of Nat Turner, the Pulitzer Prizewinning novel by Virginia-native William Styron, published at the height of the Black Power movement in September 1967.
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