The Shock Shop

Chief recollects a past experience with shock therapy. It is a unique passage because although it it somewhat crazy, it is also possible that Chief is not even hallucinating and is talking about his experience in reality. On pages 125-126 he says,

"I'd wander in the fog, scared I'd never see another thing, then there'd be that door, opening to show me the mattress padding on the other side to stop out the sound, the men standing in line like zombies among shiny copper wires and tubes pulsating light, and the bright scrape arching electricity. I'd take my place in line and wait my turn at the table. The table shaped like a cross, with shadows of a thousand murdered men printed on it, silhouette wrists and ankles running under leather straps sweated green with use, a silhouette neck and head running up to a silver band running across the forehead. And a technician at the controls beside the table looking up from his dials and down the line and pointing at me with rubber glove."

While Chief is already hallucinating about the fog machine, he winds up in the shock shop. Here he will yet again be controlled and terrorized by the machines again. This is portrayed in an extremely inhumane and frightening way. It's once again showing the overpowering evil dominance that the machines (The big nurse included), have over Chief and all of the patients. Although it is probable that Chief actually did hallucinate parts of the experience, the effect that the machines are continuing to have over him, real or not, also symbolic of how hopeless Chief is against the combine. He has recently become engulfed in Fog from the machine extremely often, and he is also going crazy as a result of shock therapy. Considering this, I think that the machines, even the real ones too, are making it impossible for chief to succeed in becoming healthy again. I really can't tell if he can get better at this point or not. Also another question that I have had about the outcome of this book, is if Mac will suffer anything near the same fate as that of the other men on the ward who are at the mercy of the machines?