Although it is unclear why he lied, the nature of the lie is clarified by the third person omniscient narrator who confirms “he knew a few strokes,” enough to have chosen to jump into the water (Whitehead 182). Later, when Mark reunited with his comrades they nicknamed him Mark Spitz as a joke because he claimed he couldn’t swim. He was telling Gary that instead of jumping off a bridge into a river, he decided to fight the skels surrounding him, unlike his other comrades. The timing of this mention or race is quite strategic, for it is in the telling of how the protagonist got his nickname that the mention of race arises. However, it must be noted that race is central to this novel because, historically, zombie literature portrayed zombies along the likeness racialized bodies of Haitian and Caribbean persons. The skin color of the individuals in this book is not explicitly given except surrounding a derogatory stereotype of African Americans. Mark Spitz is the name of a popular Olympic gold medalist swimmer, and, provided that we are only ever given his nickname and not his birth name, this is how readers must identify him. Mark continually describes himself in self-defeating terms of mediocrity. However, the assigned nickname may not reflect how the person truly feels about their self, and this happens to be the case for Mark. Nicknames are assigned to people by others to the nicknamed by observations they have made of an individual. Not everyone is referred to by their given name at birth, some people may be known by their nickname by close friends or colleagues. Hereditary rights through last names,or names meaning and origin can tell others about the said persons status and ranking.

Names in literature and in reality can have an important social significance.

Additionally, Coloson Whitehead’s use of the nickname for this individual and his characterization of the protagonist is conspicuously about the United States history of exploiting African Americans. The use of a zombie apocalypse provides symbolism that highlights the internal conflict the protagonist is dealing with, along with the nickname the protagonist acquires.

An important element in one’s social identity is how others view oneself, and this is for the most part within an individual’s control, or is it? In Colson Whitehead’s novel Zone One, the protagonist struggles with their racial identity.

Zone one by colson whitehead