Part IV : "It Is Done…"
The Confessions of Nat Turner (1967)
Quotes from book
The Confessions of Nat Turner
The Confessions of Nat Turner is a 1967 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by U.S. writer William Styron. Presented as a first-person narrative by historical figure Nat Turner, the novel concerns the slave revolt in Virginia in 1831. It is based on The Confessions of Nat Turner: The Leader of the Late Insurrection in Southampton, Virginia, a first-hand account of Turner's confessions published by a local lawyer, Thomas Ruffin Gray, in 1831.Time Magazine included the novel in its TIME 100 Best English-language Novels from 1923 to 2005.
Part IV : "It Is Done…"
The Confessions of Nat Turner (1967)
Part I : Judgment Day
The Confessions of Nat Turner (1967)
“Surely mankind has yet to be born. Surely this is true!”
Part II : Old Times Past : Voices, Dreams, Recollections
The Confessions of Nat Turner (1967)
Context: “Surely mankind has yet to be born. Surely this is true! For only something blind and uncomprehending could exist in such a mean conjunction with its own flesh, its own kind. How else account for such faltering, clumsy, hateful cruelty? Even the possums and the skunks know better! Even the weasels and the meadow mice have a natural regard for their own blood and kin. Only the insects are low enough to do the low things that people do — like those ants that swarm on poplars in the summertime, greedily husbanding little green aphids for the honeydew they secrete. Yes, it could be that mankind has yet to be born. Ah, what bitter tears God must weep at the sight of the things that men do to other men!” He broke off then and I saw him shake his head convulsively, his voice a sudden cry: “In the name of money! Money! ”
“I shivered in the knowledge of the futility of all ambition.”
Part III : Study War
The Confessions of Nat Turner (1967)
Context: I shivered in the knowledge of the futility of all ambition. My mouth was sour with the yellow recollection of death and blood-smeared fields and walls. I watched the girl slip away, vanish without a hand laid upon her. Who knows but whether we were not doomed to lose. I know nothing any longer. Nothing. Did I really wish to vouchsafe a life for the one that I had taken?
