Margaret Atwood's Moral Disorders

Margaret Atwood's 2006 collection of connected stories, Moral Disorder, grapples with the complicated ethics of obligation, particularly the conflict between selfishness and sacrifice that can arise within the praxis of care. 1 While some stories were published [End Page 236] earlier and separately, their gathering in this single collection produces a unified interrogation of the caregiving. Indeed, the need for care dominates these stories: the narrator or protagonist cares for a variety of family members, friends, strangers, and even animals. But in these stories the demands of care are never quite met, and none of the characters thrive as a result of the care they receive. I read the collection as a literary contribution to ethics of care