Perversion the Social Relation

" As If Set Free into Another Land" 179as taboo because it falls outside the acceptable forms of white male privilegein slave society. Even though he takes advantage of the child, Brantley'spenchant for boys places him at odds with the hierarchical structureof Virginia society because he still tries to instigate a form of sexualrelations that even the paternalistic culture of slavery cannot accommodate.This deviation from the normative mode of sexual relations consequentlysets him apart from the normative mode of social relations andmakes it possible for Nat both to identify with Brantley as an outlawand to recognize that Brantley might not pose a threat to Nat's visionof a new community.When Brantley breaks down and tells how the white churches havebanished him for being a sodomite, Nat is "suddenly swept away bypity and disgust," and recognizes Brantley's wretched state as a whiteoutcast. He agrees to baptize the man and then speculates about his reasonsfor agreeing: "It may be only that Brantley at that moment seemedas wretched and forsaken as the lowest Negro; white though he mightbe, he was as deserving of the Lord's grace as were others deservingof His wrath, and to fail Brantley would be to fail my own obligationas minister of His word. Besides, it gave me pleasure to know that byshowing Brantley the way to salvation I had fulfilled a duty that a whitepreacher had shirked" (315). As "wretched and forsaken as the lowestNegro," Brantley is already an outlaw who is denied access to the whitenetworks of power and security. No doubt fascinated by the idea thatwhites can exclude other whites from their own community, Nat consequentlydecides to baptize him out of an identification with the desperationof Brantley's status. Although Nat admits that he gets somesatisfaction in doing the job as a "minister of His word" better than a"white preacher," and although he is moved in part by a "pity" that confirmshis own spiritual superiority, he also bases his decision on morealtruistic grounds that fall in line with his identification. Nat is clear thatonly some people deserve "grace" while others deserve "wrath," indicatingthat it is by no means his policy to help people indiscriminately. Natis particular in choosing whom he will help, and he baptizes Brantleyprimarily because he sees Brantley as truly abject and deserving of salvation.And even though his white skin technically makes him superior toNat, his appeal to Nat for help and guidance shows that Brantley actuallydisregards the dominant hierarchies as part of an unjust, oppressive,