"The Labrador Fiasco" in Moral Disorder by Margaret Atwood is a story about growing old, and dying. This large theme is reflected in many ways, predominantly in tone and narration, as well as the story within a story of Hubbard, Wallace, and George, which is a metaphorical representation of her father's current deterioration.
The daughter, who is the narrator, makes the story feels old right from the start. The story is set in "one of those Octobers,"in which the father is sitting on his armchair, with his feet propped up. This is a very familiar scene for the narrator to describe. It seems that this "October" is an old friend whom the daughter knows very well [189]. She says, "Therefore it must be evening." Everything about life has become predictable.
Another interesting narrator choice for the story about Hubbard, Wallace, and George is that it is always commented upon in present tense. "What's happening now?" the daughter asks [189]. Yet, she says, "I already know the story." However, whenever she comes back to reality, and comments on her father, everything is in past tense. She says, "he himself would not have taken the wrong supplies." This is also in a tone that suggests she believes that her father in this day would have made the same mistakes, or worse. Her father is older now. "He would never have gone on this ill-advised journey in the first place."
Everything about her father is concerning the past. Inside the house, she describes a photograph. In the photograph, her father is thirty years younger, and is wearing a bandana. This is a memory, frozen in time, to be reminisced about—but, she says he looked "like someone who knows what he is doing" [193]. But now, her father lives in the story, which is told in present tense because it is the only place that he can now live, at least in his former glory. He no longer knows what he is doing because he is growing old; he is dying. Nobody knows what to do when they are dying.
Of course, her father identifies himself with George in the story set in Labrador. "'That George knew what he was doing,'" he said. But he is no longer George.
Throughout the story, there are multiple examples of her father dealing with his new body, and her mother dealing with the things her husband can no longer do. The story in Labrador is temporarily halted when her father falls asleep in the middle of it. "'He never used to go to sleep,'" her mother comments. Death comes quietly and slowly, but mercilessly in this story. The father is already heading down the wrong river.
Later on, they comment on him quitting the hobbies he "used to have." When the daughter suggests using a tape recorder, the mother exclaims "More gadgets!" Her father has stopped learning. He has stopped moving forward. Death is what awaits those who no longer move forward. Time stops for no one.
Meanwhile in the Labrador story, Hubbard has given up and died. Wallace too. George trudges alone down the river in hopes of finding whatever he was looking for. Death is looming for the father as well, as he suffers another stroke and loses his grip on reality. He is trying to stop the train of time, or make it reverse, but it will not stop. As in Kubler-Ross "five stages of grief": in the end there is only acceptance.
One quote that I thought was very interest is: "he was once more reckless...more sure of his ability to confront fate and transcend danger"[190]. It implies that as we get older, we lose more and more of the ability that is specific to human beings: being able to change our future and obtain things we do not have. The narrator's father has lost that ability, as he is increasingly a burden on his wife and daughter. He is living in the past, complaining about the present, and eventually accepting it.
Ultimately, this is a tragic story that objectively presents a transparent picture of dying. The father is not going out in a bang; he is not dying as a martyr. There will be no sparks when her father goes. This is dying the way most of the readers will go: quiet, solemn, and alone.
Her father finally says at the end, "I never thought this would happen." They never do.
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