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Studia Romanica et Anglica Zagrabiensia : Revue publiée par les Sections romane, italienne et anglaise de la Faculté des Lettres de l’Université de Zagreb, Vol. 34 No. -, 1989.

Original scientific paper

The 'Nat Turner' Controversy

Ivo Vidan

Full text: english pdf 590 Kb

page 167-176

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Abstract

In the late sixties, William Styron, who had acquired considerable reputation with his first three novels, published "The Confessions of Nat Turner", a fictionalized account of a slave rebellion in Virginia
in 1831. The author himself, as well as influential white critics, thought that the book was highly sympathetic to Nat Turner, the black rebel leader, and expected a positive response from the black
community. However, a number of black Writers attacked Styron for what they saw as profoundly racíst attitudes. This paper examines the problematic aspects of the novel and the main issues of this
controversy as generally illustrative of the difficulties involved in bridging cultural and historical misunderstandings and, in its particularities, as characteristic of America in the 196os.

Keywords

Hrčak ID:

121495

URI

https://hrcak.srce.hr/121495

Publication date:

22.6.1989.

Article data in other languages: croatian

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