House Taken Over

D’Costa 01
Amanda D’Costa
AU180169
TYBA
Latin American Literature
Ass.t Professor Andrew Barreto
5 March 2021
A close reading of ‘House Taken Over’ by Julio Cortazar
Julio Cortazar was an Argentine author, born in 1914. A lot of his works have been
translated to English from the language they were originally written in, Spanish. Cortazar has
been a rather influential writer, known all over the world for his creativity, imagination and
experimental writing techniques. Cortazar wrote ‘House taken Over’ in 1946. The book has
had readers raise several questions since, regarding what it signifies, what it’s meaning is
and what it’s portrayal of magical realism explores. Through the course of this paper, I aim to
analyze the plot,characterization, conflict, manner of writing, themes and elements of
magical realism.I will also speculate what certain aspects of the story could have implied.
The plot of the story is a rather slow one. However, there is always an underlying shadow of
what it is that is really going on. The author talks about the house, his routine with Irene, his
sister. He speaks of their relationship and their daily routines. The plot escalates when we
read about how the author suddenly shuts a part of the house because he hears a bunch of
noises from a side of the house. The sentence ‘They’ve taken over that part of the house’
leaves
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readers rather jarred, with their interest piqued. He goes on to talk about their lives and the
inconvenience caused by the fact that that portion of the house being closed, however he
also .
mentions, that they adapted and got along just fine. In the end, when both siblings hear the
noise and believe it was coming from their part of the house, they quickly make a run for it,
and after locking the house, throw away the key, making themselves homeless in the dead
of the night as a result. Moving to the characterization, we see both siblings are very calm,
placid people. They go about their days with their functional routine, however, they do seem
to blindly accept the fact that they are entirely helpless about what it was that was taking
away their house from them. They refused to fight whatever it was, and eventually let it kick
them out of their own house. This shows that they were merely pushovers. Had their fear
sprung from a valid source and they were truly scared of what was taking over, why would
they remain in said house, letting themselves loose their belongings and control one by one?
This of course, is only assuming, they had a credible source of information, telling them this
was a force to be worried about. We (arguably) notice only one genre of conflict through the
story- Man versus nature. The siblings did not fight amongst themselves, the only thing that
caused problems was the belief that some’super-natural’ force was taking over their house.
Or it could just be a bunch of monkeys, and perhaps both siblings were Pithecophobic.
Either way, both things are a part of nature. However, it could be argued that the
‘Man versus Self’ conflict is also present, as perhaps their own imagination and
fabricated belief of who or what was taking over the house, had them lose
everything. It can be observed that Cortazar has used short sentences during the
course of the story. Perhaps, he has done so to imply that the passive nature has
caused them to lose more and more, leaving them with less. The themes of the
story seem to revolve around family, fear and faith.Magical realism, is the inclusion
of mystical or magical features or characters to realistic fictional stories, in a

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matter-of-fact way. In the story, one may observe how ‘they’ taking over the house
part by part, is something the siblings have made their peace with. Infact, their
existence is already accepted and not up for debate.
As can be seen in the story, Irine and her brother enjoy their secluded routines. They
have a very concrete lifestyle, but are still paraylzed with fear. They seem unable to
initiate conflict with whatever it is that they believe is taking over their house. They
quietly accept defeat, until the very end. That, I believe, is their hamartia. Their
rigidity in their belief, and their unwillingness to change. With this, I conclude my
close reading of ‘House taken over’ by Julio Cortazar.

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D’Costa 01

Latin American Literature

Ass.t Professor Andrew Barreto

A close reading of ‘House Taken Over’ by Julio Cortazar

analyze the plot,characterization, conflict, manner of writing, themes and elements of

of mystical or magical features or characters to realistic fictional stories, in a

existence is already accepted and not up for debate.

close reading of ‘House taken over’ by Julio Cortazar.

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