twist, Margaret and her sisters have not gone away on vacation after all. Filled with unreasoning hatred, Will the axe-wielding maniac slays all the white women but Margaret, openly taunting Nat and daring him to prove his black manhood to the rest of the recruits. With a heavy heart, Nat grabs his sword and chases Margaret into a nearby field, where he slays her with great reluctance. As the breath leaves her body, the pure young maiden sighs her forgiveness for her unwilling executioner. Back in the jail cell, lawyer Gray smugly announces that the hangman is ready to punish Nat for his crimes. As he concludes their final interview, he asks the failed black leader if he has any regrets for having caused so much suffering and death. Literary significance and criticism Despite defenses by notable African-American authors Ralph Ellison and James Baldwin, the novel was strongly criticized by many African Americans. Styron's portrayal of a legendary black resistance leader as a reluctant warrior who bumbles every attack and fumbles his way to total defeat generated enormous resentment. No less offensive to many black readers was the narrator's flattering portrayal of many of the novel's slaveowners, such as the "saintly" Samuel Turner. The character of Margaret Whitehead, in particular, seemed to enrage black readers, as she is permitted to flirt with Nat and chatter on endlessly about her love for poor downtrodden blacks while remaining sunnily unaware of her own slave-owning status. For much of the novel Nat sighs over the slim, virginal blonde like a love-struck adolescent, while showing little or no interest in women of his own race. Issues of class divided readers as well. While the white slaveowners in the novel, especially the wealthy ones, are represented as generous, courteous, and basically decent, poor whites are held up to ridicule as simpletons and deviants. Turner and his supporters (particularly the scene-stealing, scenery-chewing madman Will, who many readers saw as a thinly disguised version of black rock and roll pioneer Little Richard) are caricatured as disturbed, monstrous figures. Nat and his rival Will are both continually shown fantasizing about sexually assaulting white women. Critics took issue with Styron using the "myth of the black rapist", as portraying black men as prone to sexual violence against white women. Suspected sexual assault was a longstanding racist stereotype used as rhetorical justification for lynching black men. In order to address