Margaret Atwood’s Later Short Fiction

Abstract

This chapter surveys Atwood’s three short fiction collections published since 2000 – The Tent, Moral Disorder, and Stone Mattress: Nine Tales – and is a sequel to the chapter “Margaret Atwood’s Short Stories and Shorter Fictions” presented in the original Companion. Arranged in three parts, one on each collection with detailed analyses of examples, the chapter explores generic questions raised in these highly varied collections of short fiction, together with Atwood’s thematic and stylistic range. The Tent features a dazzling mix of prose subgenres: fables, dialogues, essay-fictions, rewritings of myth, and prose poetry, which are analyzed in “No More Photos” and “Our Cat Enters Heaven,” while Moral Disorder, Atwood’s first short story cycle, shows how her storytelling comes closest to the short story proper. Stone Mattress introduces a new variant with its “tales,” moving beyond the boundaries of social realism into genre fiction as Atwood plays with those conventions, combining a strong interest in plot with social and ethical critique.