From the beginning, “Shadow of a Doubt” depicts Uncle Charlie and his namesake with only slight differences, alluding to their similarities, regardless of the more obvious contradictions. The first time the audience meets each character is done in a parallel manner, setting the expectation of how their characters will align right from the beginning. The connectedness of these two characters is also seen when Charlie asks the lady at the telegraph office if she believes in telepathy after a sign that she and her uncle may have a connection deeper than just that of uncle and niece. Even from different places, their paths are crossing. Another similarity is that, as enticing as it can be, neither character is focused on money. They are both more fascinated by their own lives and those of each other.

As much as they may be shown from similar angles and share a name, Uncle Charlie and his niece desire the polar opposite. Charlie is looking for a life outside of her “average,” boring, family-oriented lifestyle and her Uncle is dreaming of going back to the moments in his childhood that featured family connection and were innocent and beautiful. Uncle Charlie challenges Charlie’s security in her lifestyle on multiple occasions, but is never able to switch with her until the very end of the film. Unfortunately for Uncle Charlie, though he does switch with his niece, it is certainly not how he meant to go about doing so. That said, Charlie also gets the switch she wanted, but she inherits the parts of her Uncle that make him the villain; he is murderous, cold, and insensitive. In the train scene, not only does Charlie letting her Uncle fall to his death transfer over the cruelty of his character, she also physically takes his place on the train he was supposed to take alone. From two characters as parallels in separate places to Charlie as an embodiment of them both, Hitchcock molds the good with the evil and a young life with a murderous one.