Importance of fog

Valparaiso is often host to fog. One such very heavy fog obscures the city at the beginning of the novel that it unnerves and even scares Celeste. It makes it difficult to keep a track of her friends. She is further unnerved when she parts ways with Lucila, and watches Lucila disappear into the fog. This foreshadows Lucila’s later literal disappearance under the reign of the General. The fog itself comes to symbolize future uncertainty, loss, and confusion which will be manifested by the rise of the General and his cohorts.