Language

Style of writing

The language used by Helen Phillips in the short story “The Disaster Store” foreshadows the disastrous natural event that the narrator prepares for – the superstorm. On the same note, the choice of words also helps readers identify the narrator's state of mind regarding the events she experiences.

Therefore, words and expressions like “fear”, “anger”, “yearning”, “disaster”, and “emergency” have negative connotations and create a state of unease that mirrors the narrator’s feelings. The author also inserts words related to climate change, like “icebergs, the Celsius and Fahrenheit scales, tsunamis, wildfires, earthquakes, superstorms, quicksand”. Seeing these words combined in an enumeration adds to the readers’ sense of unease. 

Furthermore, repetition also adds to the narrator’s anxiety. When she gives in and buys her daughter a scoop of ice cream, she feels frustrated because her daughter does not seem to understand her state of mind and that she is not talking to her:

I cannot speak and I cannot speak and my daughter eats her ice cream and still I cannot speak and I wonder when she will notice but still she does not notice, her passion for the ice cream not the lea...