significance of Radio program

The radio program the shopkeeper is listening to in "Miss Adele Amidst the Corsets" is a symbolic reminder of her religious upbringing, which was obviously a source of trauma and pain. She mentions that her father was a preacher and that her parents expected both her and her twin brother to become preachers as well. This and other context clues make it clear that her parents were not accepting of Miss Adele's gender transition. When she enters the corset shop and hears a booming voice on the radio, she assumes it is a religious program, despite the fact that she cannot understand the language being spoken. This causes her to make all sorts of judgmental assumptions about the shopkeepers. The author evocatively captures the panic the radio program instills in Miss Adele: "She felt she had not so much entered a shop as some stranger's spittle-filled mouth" (83), and as the tension escalates, "Miss Adele felt like a nail being hammered into the floor" (91).