Moral Disorder
Encyclopedia
Moral Disorder is a collection of connected short stories by Margaret Atwood
. It was first published on 4 September 2006 by McClelland and Stewart
. It chronicles the hidden pains of a troubled Canadian family over a 60 year span. All the short stories have the same female main character at different times of her life, except the last one, which is an autobiographical tale.
The book title is taken from the title of the novel that Graeme Gibson
was writing in 1996, when he decided to stop writing novels.
, she imagines them as ancient Romans
, discussing over breakfast the bad news about the Barbarian invasions.
. Later the baby sister included the severed head in her games. She was always very sensitive and impressionable, coming close, in her teens, to suicidal thoughts.
by Robert Browning
. It is a monologue by the Duke of Ferrara
that implies he may have killed his young wife
because "she smiled too much". Bill, whose strength is algebra and exact sciences, can't understand the poem. The main character makes an effort to explain it to him, but finds that she herself is haunted by questions. Her first superficial erotic experiences are contrasted with the dark side hinted at by the poem. She and Bill eventually break up because he accuses her of defending the Duke. There is some truth in the accusation, since she finds the Duchess a "dumb bunny".
and a similarly lonely friend comes often to visit. He tells her about when his three brothers almost killed him in a cruel joke by locking him in an ice box. Later she marries Tig and lives the settled life she was thinking about. But she often dreams of being in an apartment similar to the one she had in Vancouver and of knowing that a child is locked away dying in one of the rooms. She wonders if the place in her dream represents the past or is a place in her future.
with them and can't help being competitive and beating them. She feels like a concubine or a governess.
. A medium is called and says that some "entities" are entering at the place where the blood was. She makes a charm to move this entry point outside to the garden.
and has recovered only partially. He used to be very active but now passes his days in inactivity. Nell's mother reads him a book about the doomed Labrador
exploration mission of Hubbard and Wallace. He knows the story very well and comments on the mistakes they made. He later has another stroke that takes his short term memory away. In his mind the predicament of the explorers, trying desperately to find the way back home, combines with his desire to go back "home", that is, the state things were before the strokes.
Margaret Atwood
Margaret Eleanor Atwood, is a Canadian poet, novelist, literary critic, essayist, and environmental activist. She is among the most-honoured authors of fiction in recent history; she is a winner of the Arthur C...
. It was first published on 4 September 2006 by McClelland and Stewart
McClelland and Stewart
McClelland & Stewart Limited is a Canadian publishing company. It is partially owned by Random House of Canada, now a subsidiary of Bertelsmann....
. It chronicles the hidden pains of a troubled Canadian family over a 60 year span. All the short stories have the same female main character at different times of her life, except the last one, which is an autobiographical tale.
The book title is taken from the title of the novel that Graeme Gibson
Graeme Gibson
Graeme C. Gibson, CM is a Canadian novelist who lives in Toronto, Ontario. He is a Member of the Order of Canada , and was one of the organizers of the Writer's Union of Canada . He has a long term relationship with the novelist and poet Margaret Atwood.In 1996 he decided to stop writing novels...
was writing in 1996, when he decided to stop writing novels.
The Bad News
The female character reflects on the morning habits of her husband and herself. He rushes into the bedroom to tell her the news from the paper. He is eager to share the burden. But she would rather wait until breakfast. Their behavior has settled into patterns. She feels that they are just waiting for the time when their world will start collapsing. Remembering a vacation to GlanumGlanum
Glanum was an oppidum, or fortified town, founded by a Celto-Ligurian people called the Salyens in the 6th century B.C.,. It was known for the healing power of its spring. It became a Roman city in Provence until its abandonment in 260 A.D....
, she imagines them as ancient Romans
Ancient Rome
Ancient Rome was a thriving civilization that grew on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to one of the largest empires in the ancient world....
, discussing over breakfast the bad news about the Barbarian invasions.
The Art of Cooking and Serving
At the age of eleven, the main character knit clothes for her unborn baby sister. She had to do most of the work in the summer house by the lake. She invested much energy in the work and strove to make it perfect. But at the same time, she felt resentment for having to do all the work, feeling like a servant. When the baby was born, she was sensitive and cried all the time. The parents demanded that their older daughter take care of her little sister.Eventually she burst out to her mother: "She's not my baby. I didn't have her. You did." From that day she felt psychologically relieved of her responsibilities towards the family.The Headless Horseman
In the present, the main character and her sister talk about the past while driving to visit their mother, whose health is failing. They talk about their youth. When the older sister was thirteen, the baby being two, she made a Halloween costume of the Headless HorsemanHeadless Horseman
The headless horseman has been a motif of European folklore since at least the Middle ages.The Headless Horseman is a fictional character who appears in a short story called “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” which is in a collection of The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon written by Washington Irving...
. Later the baby sister included the severed head in her games. She was always very sensitive and impressionable, coming close, in her teens, to suicidal thoughts.
My Last Duchess
Before her final high-school exam, she studies with her boyfriend Bill. In particular, they analyze the poem My Last DuchessMy Last Duchess
"My Last Duchess" is a poem by Robert Browning, frequently anthologized as an example of the dramatic monologue. It first appeared in 1842 in Browning's Dramatic Lyrics.-Poem structure and historical background:...
by Robert Browning
Robert Browning
Robert Browning was an English poet and playwright whose mastery of dramatic verse, especially dramatic monologues, made him one of the foremost Victorian poets.-Early years:...
. It is a monologue by the Duke of Ferrara
Alfonso II, Duke of Ferrara
Alfonso II d'Este was duke of Ferrara from 1559 to 1597. He was a member of the house of Este.-Biography:...
that implies he may have killed his young wife
Lucrezia di Cosimo de Medici
Lucrezia de' Medici was the daughter of Cosimo I de' Medici and Eleanor of Toledo.Born in Florence, she was the first wife of Alfonso II d'Este, Duke of Modena and Ferrara, whom she married on 3 July 1558. She moved to Ferrara only two years later, after being abandoned by her husband, who...
because "she smiled too much". Bill, whose strength is algebra and exact sciences, can't understand the poem. The main character makes an effort to explain it to him, but finds that she herself is haunted by questions. Her first superficial erotic experiences are contrasted with the dark side hinted at by the poem. She and Bill eventually break up because he accuses her of defending the Duke. There is some truth in the accusation, since she finds the Duchess a "dumb bunny".
The Other Place
As a young adult, the main character travels a lot, going from job to job as a kind of intellectual nomad. During this time, her friends settle down and have a family. She wonders whether she will always be alone and roaming or will she eventually settle down. Even when the sexual revolution happens and behavior like hers becomes common, she feels different because she has a seriousness that others don't show. At one time, she has an apartment in VancouverVancouver
Vancouver is a coastal seaport city on the mainland of British Columbia, Canada. It is the hub of Greater Vancouver, which, with over 2.3 million residents, is the third most populous metropolitan area in the country,...
and a similarly lonely friend comes often to visit. He tells her about when his three brothers almost killed him in a cruel joke by locking him in an ice box. Later she marries Tig and lives the settled life she was thinking about. But she often dreams of being in an apartment similar to the one she had in Vancouver and of knowing that a child is locked away dying in one of the rooms. She wonders if the place in her dream represents the past or is a place in her future.
Monopoly
In this story the narration switches to third person. We learn that the main character is called Nell. She is a free-lance editor and gets a job helping an author, Oona, writes a self-help book for women. In a moment of confidence, Oona tells Nell that her marriage with Tig is in crisis and they stay together only for the benefit of their two sons. They have liberal sexual attitudes and Oona selects Nell as Tig's lover. Later Tig moves out of the marriage and rents a farm. Nell goes to visit but is not allowed to stay when the children come. Eventually she has the permission to stay at the farm when they are there but is supposed to take care of them. She plays MonopolyMonopoly (game)
Marvin Gardens, the leading yellow property on the board shown, is actually a misspelling of the original location name, Marven Gardens. The misspelling was said to be introduced by Charles Todd and passed on when his home-made Monopoly board was copied by Charles Darrow and thence to Parker...
with them and can't help being competitive and beating them. She feels like a concubine or a governess.
Moral Disorder
Tig and Nell move to a new farm. They start growing vegetables and raising animals, first hens, then peacocks, cows, and sheep. The locals see them as town people ignorant of the country lifestyle, but they also help. One of the new-born lambs need to be fed by hand and kept inside the house. Nell grows attached to it. When the lamb grows up, it doesn't adapt to living with the other sheep and becomes aggressive against Tig out of jealousy for Nell. It has to be put down. Coming back from the slaughterhouse, Nell cries and accuses Tig of not wanting her to have babies.White Horse
A friend of Nell rescues an old mistreated mare and gives her to Nell and Tig. Nell takes care of her and learns to ride her, naming her Gladys. Nell's sister Lizzie comes to visit, especially when she's having one of her crises. A psychiatrist diagnoses her with schizophrenia and gives her pills that make her sluggish and apathetic. He tells Nell that it would be dangerous to reveal her condition to Lizzie. Eventually, they consult a specialist and it turns out that the psychiatrist was a quack and the pills unnecessary and dangerous. Lizzie resents Nell for not telling her about the diagnosis. She becomes energetic again and is fond of running along Gladys. In the meantime, Nell becomes pregnant. Eventually, Lizzie leaves the farm, her crises stop, and she gets married. One night the white mare escapes from the barns, runs into the street, and is killed by a car.The Entities
Nell and Tig sell their farm and go back to live in Toronto. Their real-estate agent, Lillie, is an elderly lady, a survivor of a German concentration camp. With her help they find a nice small house and, later, a larger one. Oona, meanwhile, has become hostile and accuses Tig of being rich and hiding his money to avoid paying her alimony. She demands that they find a house for her. Nell, using a small inheritance, buys a house and allows Oona to live there for a nominal rent. But Oona is still unhappy and wants to move. One day Nell and Oona's children come to the house and find Oona dead on the floor. The elder son has to break a window to enter; he cuts his leg and bleeds a lot. After this, Lillie is convinced that there is an evil presence in the house. This is the first sign of Alzheimer's diseaseAlzheimer's disease
Alzheimer's disease also known in medical literature as Alzheimer disease is the most common form of dementia. There is no cure for the disease, which worsens as it progresses, and eventually leads to death...
. A medium is called and says that some "entities" are entering at the place where the blood was. She makes a charm to move this entry point outside to the garden.
The Labrador Fiasco
Nell visits her parents. Her father has suffered a strokeStroke
A stroke, previously known medically as a cerebrovascular accident , is the rapidly developing loss of brain function due to disturbance in the blood supply to the brain. This can be due to ischemia caused by blockage , or a hemorrhage...
and has recovered only partially. He used to be very active but now passes his days in inactivity. Nell's mother reads him a book about the doomed Labrador
Labrador
Labrador is the distinct, northerly region of the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador. It comprises the mainland portion of the province, separated from the island of Newfoundland by the Strait of Belle Isle...
exploration mission of Hubbard and Wallace. He knows the story very well and comments on the mistakes they made. He later has another stroke that takes his short term memory away. In his mind the predicament of the explorers, trying desperately to find the way back home, combines with his desire to go back "home", that is, the state things were before the strokes.
The Boys at the Lab
This story is told in first person by the author. She is taking care of her ninety-year old mother, looking at old photographs, and trying to reconstruct the stories behind them. Her father used to do research in entomology in a log lab in the woods. Among his assistants, collectively called "the boys at the lab", there were two young men called Cam and Ray. Her mother seemed to have a special liking for them. She says that Cam died of an unspecified disease. Another one of the boys came from India. He hadn't realized how rough the conditions would be and came with a tennis racquet and nice clothes. The author tries to imagine what his feelings might have been and tries to give a story to Cam and Ray.External links
- Review in The GuardianThe GuardianThe Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
, 23 September 2006. - Review in The TimesThe TimesThe Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
, 2 September 2006.