Habitation
Habitation - meaning Summary
Marriage as Fragile Survival
Atwood reframes marriage as a precarious, pre-domestic state rather than a finished shelter. The poem places lovers at various marginal edges—forest, desert, glacier—emphasizing vulnerability, rawness and the ongoing work of survival. Rather than comfort or permanence, the couple shares practical learning and astonishment: they are still learning basic skills together, notably how to make fire. The tone mixes austerity with fragile hope about building a life jointly.
Read Complete AnalysesMarriage is not a house or even a tent it is before that, and colder: the edge of the forest, the edge of the desert the unpainted stairs at the back where we squat outside, eating popcorn the edge of the receding glacier where painfully and with wonder at having survived even this far we are learning to make fire!
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