Styron's novel begins in the first-person perspective, as the narrator, Nat Turner, describes a vision that has haunted him for the first 30 years of his life. Nat approaches a promontory from a small boat on a river. He watches the “unpeopled, silent” (5) banks as he approaches land. “As always,” he sees a white building that “seems to have no purpose” (5). The vision, which he cannot understand, causes him an “emotion of a tranquil and abiding mystery” (7), likely stemmed from stories he heard from a child of others’ travels to Norfolk, the nearest city, and the ocean beyond.

Nat wakes up out of his dream to rediscover leg irons “holding [his] feet suspended slantwise in midair” (7). The chains allow him “a yard or so of movement” (8), which allows him to see out of the window to describe the town, Jerusalem, where he lives. When he hears horses, he looks to the riverbank, where three soldiers approach. Once the soldiers gallop through the town, Nat reflects that usually, at this morning hour, “it had for many years been [his] custom to pray” but as a prisoner he “was totally unable to force a prayer from [his] lips” (9).