PTSD

When exposed to the fog Chief claims: “I can’t see six inches”. He is blinded by this substance prevailing in the atmosphere. What it is precisely I do not know, wonders that become bigger when we take into account that he is in a mental hospital. It could be the electric shocks, sweat, a sedative, or one of my top choices Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.  Such disorder also affected Billy Pilgrim in Slaughterhouse Five. Through satire, the author, Kurt Vonnegut narrates Billy’s story through war and his abnormalities years after the war finished.

Billy settled for an alien civilization to sober his traumas. He was abducted by the Trafalmadorians, who taught him life lessons and exposed humanities faults. He was able to “fog” reality by entering another civilization that was molded to what he in his subconscious believed.  For Chief the fog has not been thoroughly described as for us to know certainly what it is.  Yet, by taking Vonnegut’s approach to a person suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, if Chief is really suffering form that (I infer so do to his constant mention if the old times in the Army), we will later on learn his fog.

The fog appears after an uncomfortable situation happens and Chief is taken to seclusion. In here he is set around the black kids and then the fog blinds him. If asked right now what the fog is I would have to conclude it is Chief’s way of escaping uncomfortable situations that remind him of the past.