As discussed above, Christopher is in some ways a parallel protagonist to Clare, his presence and story illuminating Clare's primarily through contrast. Specifically, while Clare takes considerable time to open herself to, understand and accept her racial and gender identity, Christopher seems born to his, coming across right from his first appearance and through the flashback narrative of his childhood as having a profound, if unconscious, experience of the male drive towards both survival and dominance. He aggressively stakes his claim for independence and identity from youth, eventually becoming lost in the psychotic, dissociative repercussions of his violent (male?) tendencies. This, the book contends in theme and narrative, is the result of racism. In other words, he is born male and black, but the book's thematic and narrative contention is that because of racism, both aspects of his personality are corrupted, leading to his eventual separation from reality (that is, to his becoming The Watchman) and his death. He is born, lives, and dies trapped within the madness of violence and loss of identity that racism, from the book's perspective, inevitably and painfully triggers.
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