A Short Story : House Taken Over By Julio Cortazar

If I was mad at you I’d tell you about it.” (Wilson, 1985, 1529) .They own a house and a small piece of property. Both Diaz and Wilson show how relevant the setting is in regard to the culture because it is vital in understanding the family dynamic. The members in both families were not entitled to opinions or input. Papi was going to drive the green Volkswagen van and Troy was going to live in the house his brother bought. The family is second to what both Papi and Troy want the desire first to be admired and respected for what material things they have acquired.

In House Taken Over the characters let their imagination take over their sense of reason because they think that an entity is in the house. Another instance of the theme being portrait in the story, “They’ve taken over the back part...the first few days were painful, since we’d both left so many thing in the part that had been taken over”( Cortazar 40). This shows that they are stressing about this situation even though the characters can only assume that an entity is present. Secondly another example of the theme is, “We didn’t wait to look at one another. I took Irene’s ar and forced her to run with me to the wrought-iron door, not waiting to look back” ( Cortazar 41). This shows that the characters were rushing to get out even though they physically cannot see what is supposedly taking over. When they run away this tells us that their only focus is to show the spirit respect. To summarize both quotes they help us understand how the character 's imagination takes over their sense of reality of what is actually happening.

The brother and sister share closer relationships than they should , and their houses somewhat represent the lives they live. With both stories having an unexplainable ending , such as why the house crumbled at the end of “Fall of the House of Usher”

Similarly, the setting in both stories, the stories include two siblings-Madeline and Usher, Irene and her brother-who live in a very bygone, spacious, and lonely house.This can be seen in “House Taken Over” where it says, “We liked the house because, apart from its being old and spacious…”(1). Irene’s brother narrated how vast the house was and he later mentions that even though it is so big only two people live in it while it can occupy eight or people. Another similarity is that both houses were owned in the family through many generations. This idea can be seen in “House Taken Over,” where Cortazar explains, “ ...it kept the memories of great-grandparents, our paternal grandfather, our parents and the whole of childhood (1). Cortazar’s short

“I’m sick of this house” (75) exclaims 15 year old, revolutionary-minded Helen McBride. Living in a house with 11 other children was not the lifestyle she had in mind. Having her own beliefs suppressed by her mother was not what she wanted in life. Helen, feeling crowded and controlled, leaves her home and does not look back.

The perfect day in “The House Taken Over” went to being scary and terrifying very few day later. The transformation of being home alone to having the police at the house was a larger transformation, because a fine morning went to not going to school, and having the deal with the police and the stranger. Cortazar’s story has a demon taking over the sibling’s home, which drives the two out of their house after cleaning the day before they felt forced out of their own home. All together, transformation creates fear, because of the way it is

In Julio Cortazar’s short story, Axolotl, the young man is searching for answers to his life. He finds these answers in the small, Mexican salamander trapped within its enclosure at the Jardin. The axolotl challenges the young man to see the simplicity behind the mysterious guise of the small amphibian. The young man’s daily visits to the Jardin only make the appeal of the axolotls greater. In those visits he begins to see not only the creatures simplicity, but also their neotenous tendencies and connection to death; all of which contribute to his association and union with them.

“Silent Dancing by Judith Ortiz Cofer is a story that explains her childhood and the struggles her and her family went through. Around the age of three Cofer, her younger brother and mother moved to the United States after living in “la isla” Puerto Rico. They moved due to the fact that her father joined the navy and was relocated in Brooklyn. “Silent Dancing” explains the way Cofer grew up in the United States while being surrounded by the same ethnic group. When moving into “El Building” in New Jersey the first few months seemed blurry. Her and her family struggled the neighborhood felt unwelcomed, treated unfairly and saw everything in the collor gray. There were few memories that came in color like the way she would hear the salsa music blasting from the other side of the wall and the smell of the Puerto Rican cooking. These memories seemed to make her content. Even though her family shared a house where she describes had people living on top of their head and under their floor. Changes like these made it seem very different for her. Cofer

Oscar Casares made Mr. Perez a believable by describing her features “she measured five feet two inches and weighed 164 pounds,” (Casares line14) he also gives us a vivid detailed on how people watched her every time to bowl. In his short story Mr. Perez is the main character who is from a little town called Brownsville’s located in the board of Texas and Mexico. He opens the story with her at the bowling alley where everyone stops to watch her paly, Casares say “the ball’s cherry red and gold swirls made it look as if it were catching fire when released down the lane… People stopped to watch when she was up” (Casares line 2-4) in which the reader fells as if they can see her roll her ball.

Cristina Garcia’s Dreaming in Cuban tells the story about three generations of a Cuban family and their different views provoked by the Cuban revolution. Though part of the same family, an outsider might classify them as adversaries judging by relationships between one another, the exiled family members, and the differentiations between political views. Although all of these central themes reoccur over and over throughout the narrative, family relationships lie at the heart of the tale. The relationships between these Cuban family members are for the most part ruptured by any or a combination of the above themes.

What drives people to undertake missions? For example, Ernesto wanted to learn english, go to school, and not give up so Ernesto came to America to go to school, learn english, and not give up. Annie Johnson did not give up and Annie made her own business and without this business Annie would not have money and would not be able to handle her childrens. Monica had more responsibilities to do because Monica wanted a little brother. Individuals are driven to undertake missions because for example one of the motivation of the first story was to learn english and go to school and be successful, another motivation was to make money to support a family, and the last motivation was that someone wanted a little brother.

While the plot and the theme are always very significant, a reader should never forget the importance of the setting in a story. This short story is a perfect example of the importance of the setting, since it is through it that the reader is able to truly understand the author’s message and intensions. It is through the description of a post-apocalyptic world, a city in ruins and the last house standing, that the reader is able to truly understand the

Countless works of literature have sentimentalized the house as a space of sanctuary; however, in time the house came to incorporate the mysterious also, as haunted houses allowed the supernatural to dwell alongside the living. Fictional narratives have long since utilized the house as a venue for character and situation to develop, dispersing opportunities for authors to bring symbolism and metaphor to their works. Julio Cortázar drew upon the house setting in his short stories “Bestiary” and “House Taken Over”, not just as a venue for his tales to play out, but as places that echoed the themes, character, and structure for the unusual could enter and abide. Cortázar’s treatment of the bizarre as a part of the natural family life of the house,

In every home, there is a different definition of family and how family should treat each other. Two short stories were read by an author named Flannery O’Connor. “A Good Man is Hard to Find”. It was about a dysfunctional family who encounters a criminal named “The Misfit”. The grandmother which is the main character is very judgmental towards others and sometimes her own family at times. This story starts off with a disagreement on where to go for a family trip, but they decide on going to Florida for the family trip after a while of arguing. On this trip, it showed what type of family they are. They talk about everything with one another as well as bicker and fight but at the end of the day, they are still family and love each other. They come together the most in panicking situations such as the accident and waiting for a car to help them. The point of this paper is the theme of family. Specifically, family is a theme in this short story because it depicts a dysfunctional family; the family you see on a crazy television show and can’t get enough of because they’re funny but also they have serious moments. There 's the two troublesome and annoying kids, the hot-headed dad who tries to maintain control of a situation and fails, the wife busy attending to the baby, and the grandmother, who 's a case all to herself (and also the main character). Though the story starts out seeming like a comedy, it takes a serious turn when the family encounters a criminal, who kills them

Many say the white house on Maple Street is strange and the old people who lived there would definitely agree. Nobody had stayed at the house for more than a year, especially since there was something strange inside its walls. The day came when another family had bought the house. That was the day their lives changed because there was someone already in the house. They were mad at the other owners for it, but they couldn’t sell the house because it was too late to find another house on the market. The person had already introduced himself and invited them to stay. The family said that they wanted some peace and quiet and nobody bothering them but they were wrong.