Irony as Realism
Early on, before the weirdness begins, King deepens the resonance of small-town domestic reality by having the narrator go off on a little tangent on the issue of local land use in a tirade laced with irony:
“Now that the sewerage runoff from the booming cottage-building industry has killed most of the fish and made the rest of them unsafe to eat, the EPA has forbidden installing sand beaches. They might upset the ecology of the lake, you see, and it is presently against the law for anyone except land developers to do that.”
The Mother Nature Encyclopedia
The story takes place back when grocery stores routinely held giveaways as customer enticement. On this particular day, the item which comprises the giveaway marketing ploy just so happens to be a set of books: "The Mother Nature Encyclopedia." Ironic, of course, because despite the assurance of attaining an encyclopedic knowledge of the wonders of nature, doubtlessly not one single volume in the set features information anything remotely like what Mother Nature is about to throw at customers.
Irony Knows the Future
Bud Brown, manager of the grocery store, does not know the future, however. Still stuck firmly in the present and thinking only of his own near-future, Brown engages in unwitting irony several times by warning customers and employees about the danger they face if they don’t refrain from breaking rules and regulations. Even after the point where his managerial day has included tentacles, blood, screaming and hysteria, however, Brown is still an unwitting agent of irony denial clinging to the belief that corporate lawyers are to be feared more than the demonic creatures unleashed from hell currently attacking the store.
"I don't know what some of you think you are doing, but I can tell you it's going to be reported to the Federal Foods Company! All of it! And I want you to understand—there may be charges!"
Raid Kills Bugs Dead
The creatures attacking the store do not appear to be of earthly origin, but rather from some other dimension that grows their bugs bigger, stronger, meaner and capable of doing things no creature known to man has ever been able to do. Despite this, it seems that at least some of them can be disposed of with nothing more powerful or otherworldly some of them can, quite ironically, be disposed of with nothing more than a typical can of bug spray.
Dueling Conspiracy Theories
Two theories formulated to explain the bizarre and unprecedented events of the day reach the status of plausibility among the inhabitants surviving inside the grocery. Mrs. Carmody’s fervent belief that the horror is steeped in Judeo-Christian prophecies about God’s wrath and the long-awaited Day of Judgment for sinners gains traction among one group. That group quite rightly inspires fear and desperation in the others when talks to serious discussion of human sacrifice as the only possible response. The alternative theory accepted by most others it that a secret military base carrying out a government experiment called Project Arrowhead is responsible for everything. Both groups, ironically, are equally proceeding with a response based entirely on faith steeped in myth, legend, paranoia, and a complete and utter lack of even one shred of evidence to support their argument.
