Comparison Of Styron's The Confessions Of Nat Turner

After reading both Styron’s novel and Thomas Grey’s book, The Confessions of Nat Turner, I have come to the conclusion that both writings have holes in their accounts, that almost any historian can find fault in. Grey was a struggling writer that needed the money and could say anything he wanted after Nat Turner’s execution since Turner was no longer alive to point out inaccuracies. Then Styron openly admits that he is not a historian, he is a novelist. A novelist that cares more about portraying a different storyline and a number of books sold, than the absolute accuracies about Turner. As a result, these writers utilize their markets demographics, to spin Turner’s life and revolt into profit, but despite some inaccurate accounts, they were able to keep Turner’s memory alive. This allows more historians to delve into this mans life, providing more facts about him, and providing another African American hero, that people like Ossie Davis, can be proud of. Thomas Grey was lucky enough to have a one on one conversation with Turner, as he was chained up, the day …show more content…
This causes great discussion and debates about turner’s real life, and if he should be downplayed or glorified. As a matter of fact, in my point of view, Styron and Grey were able to have the cake and eat it too. Both of them were able to financially profit from this mans story, and have Turner’s memory live on. Where even in 2017, people are still talking about this slave revolt, and African Americans can have another heroic figure to look up. Let's disregard these books inaccuracies, if they were never written, and not written during times where racial tension was high, Nat Turner’s life would have been forgotten shortly after his execution. Where unless you were profound historian that covered slavery in America, no one would know about this man and what he stood for to help his fellow African