Perversion the Social Relation

"As If Set Free into Another Land" 173would simply become free in slave Virginia. Thus, for Nat to replacethe slave institution with a new society governed by a system of homorelationsthat affirms the fundamental sameness of every person, he willhave to recognize that a dramatic change can only come about throughdramatic methods.Suffering his master's betrayal, which is then followed by a string ofother betrayals and setbacks, Nat quickly abandons his evangelical planfor a benign Christian society. But he does not give up his attempt toreconcile his religious purpose with his political quest to end slavery. Hebecomes increasingly committed to his faith and resentful of the whitesaround him until he finally experiences a religious vision that inspireshim to all-out bloody revolt. In the vision, a black angel vanquishes awhite angel in the sky and then tells Nat, "These shall make war with theLamb and the Lamb shall overcome them This is the fast that I havechosen, to loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, to let theoppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke" (292). This vision leadsNat to decide that the only way to liberate himself and his fellow blackscompletely is actually to destroy those who "make war with the Lamb."Instead of trusting the good intentions of white slaveholders, Nat muststrive to "break every yoke" and assert freedom through direct action.Yet, in forming this plan for warfare, he ultimately decides that the bestway to correct the oppression of a rigidly hierarchical society is to destroythose whose power keeps that hierarchy intact. This vision buildson the inspiration of Nat's experience of homo-ness in which the categoriesof identity are wiped clean, and his desire to destroy the social andeconomic institutions of slavery illogically leads him to plot the murderof every white person in the vicinity. Whereas he learns that Christianityby itself lacks the power to transform his slave society and winthe freedom of enslaved Africans as equal citizens, he evidently returnsto the liberating experience of homo-ness by deciding simply to kill differencein the name of a greater social sameness. To reach the freedom of"another land," he must utterly destroy the very signs of difference thatdefine and maintain the oppressive social structure of the "old" land.Yet even though Nat decides to create his new society of samenessand equality by destroying the whites who perpetuate injustices throughthe institutions of racism and slavery, his vision of this bloody insurrectionshould not be misconstrued as the ravings of a sexual deviant who