The following version of this poem was used to create this guide: Atwood, Margaret. "Habitation” from Selected Poems, 1965-1975. Simon & Schuster, 1978.

Note that parenthetical citations within the guide refer to the lines of the poem from which the quotations are taken.

“Habitation” is a thirteen-line poem published in 1965 about the complicated structure a marriage takes and what it truly means to be bound to another person. The poem begins with a pessimistic tone where the narrator describes marriage as more primitive than either a house or a tent and ascribes a feeling of cold to the institution. As the poem continues, increasingly harsh climates are described and compared to marriage, such as the barren edges of a forest and the beginning of a scorching desert. When the poem closes, Atwood ends on a more hopeful note as the speaker describes a wondrous feeling at having survived these cruel tests and looking forward to the coming warmth of a fire.