Joe Christmas is quite an interesting character, from the beginning of the novel when he is first introduced to the very end. Throughout “A light in August” he maintains this allure of isolation that is built upon his lifelong struggle dealing with his personal identity. Joe Christmas’ first act of this loneliness begins at early childhood. In this scene, he’s a young boy living in an orphanage, and is stealing and eating toothpaste hidden away in a room. Joe manages to hide when the dietician from the orphanage comes into the room with a man named Charley, and they began have sex, as seen from Joe Christmas’ perspective could be seen as nonconsensual; “No! No! Not her. Not now. They’ll catch us. Somebody will – No, Charley please…it had a ruthless sound, as the voices of all men did to him yet, since he was too young yet to escape from the world of women for that brief respite before he escaped back into it to remain until the hour of his death” (LIA 121). He’s soon caught and is beaten by the man, and this scene can be seen as pivotal in Joe Christmas seeking isolation in any connection to a sexual activity. Frequently, if not always after he’s intimate with a woman, whether she be white or black, he’d confess, or more so blatantly say, that he is black (if he was with a white woman, or white if he was with a black woman). He was used to this idea of rejection when it came to him disclosing his identity. He himself was unsettled and couldn’t understand his own identity. Because the fact of dealing with his own mixed identity was often too overwhelming for Joe Christmas, he relied on being rejected by others he was physically intimate with. Joe’s only exception to this rule of isolation is seen in his relationship with Miss. Burden, who doesn’t seem to have any issues with Joe being of a mixed race.