Fantasy Elements In House Taken Over By Julio Cortazar

“House Taken Over” is exceptionally shorter than “Usher” and incorporates modern English and a calmer mood to express the Magical Realism in the story. Cortazar’s text is much less intense than Poe’s and uses far more ordinary and recognizable characters and setting. He tells the story of a brother and his sister Irene and the activities they do in their daily life. The plot is then shifted towards fear with the addition of the fantastic events of the supernatural beings. “I went down the corridor as far as the oak door, which was ajar, then turned into the hall toward the kitchen, when I heard something in the library or the dining room. The sound came through muted and indistinct, a chair being knocked over onto the carpet or the muffled buzzing of a conversation. At the same time or a second later, I heard it at the end of the passage which led from those two rooms toward the door” (39). The characters in “House” have an unimpressed tone when they learn of the otherworldly creatures and try to ignore it, indicating that the story is indeed written in the style of Magical Realism. “‘I had to shut the door to the passage. They’ve taken over the back part.’ She let her knitting fall and looked at me with tired, serious eyes. ‘You’re sure?’ I nodded. ‘In that case,’ she said, picking up her needle again, ‘we’ll have to live on this side’”

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.

Cisneros used powerful imagery appealing to the sense of sight when portraying their dream house, “[their] house would have running water and pipes that worked. And inside it would have real stairs, not hallway stairs, but stairs inside like the houses on T.V. And [they’d] have a basement and at least three washrooms so when [they] took a bath [they] wouldn't have to tell everybody. [Their] house would be white with trees around it, a great big yard and grass growing without a fence” (Cisneros 4). The authors use of imagery in this instance effectively gives the

In the story, the “The Right Kind Of House, the suspense is created through foreshadowing, characterization, the old woman’s insanity, and the theme revenge.

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

One of Diana spookiest experiences of her life was when her cousins and Diana would hear weird sounds in the night. This scenario relates to the traits of Gothic Lit and Magical Realism because the sounds did happen so it's reality. Gothic Lit and Magical Realism are similar because they are both scary, mysterious, and are dramatic. Edgar Allen Poe’s “Fall of the House of Usher” is an example of Gothic Literature because it has a dark and gloomy setting in a large old mansion. While Julio Cortazar’s “House Taken Over” is an example of Magical Realism because it has a mysterious ending.

They’ve taken over the back part...in that case, we’ll have to live on this side. I sipped at the mate...she took her time starting her work again… I remember it was a grey vest she was knitting. I liked that vest” (Cortazar 39-40). This demonstrates magical realism because strange events coincide with realistic characters in their everyday life. Likewise, this also shows unimpressed tone which is an element of magical realism in presenting fantastic events as logical parts of life when the narrator hears the mysterious sounds emitting from the passageway and afterwards they treat it as a very ordinary occurrence, returning to what they were doing prior to the occasion such as sipping mate and returning to needlework. Therefore, “House Taken Over” is an example of magical realism. {JinJinYan}

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

As the nameless narrator is approaching the house, he says , “I know not how it was - but, with the first glimpse of the building, a sense of insufferable gloom pervaded my spirit.” (pg. 21). The house looks gloomy, mysterious, and is disintegrating, yet still strong. From what the narrator has seen, the reader can see that the house has a power over the people that enter and live inside. Considering this, at the beginning of the story the narrator is completely rational, but he also senses something peculiar. When the narrator goes into the house he finds the inside just as mysterious and eerie. Subsequently, he enters the house to see his friend Roderick, he notes that his friend is not looking so well. Roderick lists out his symptoms saying, “I have, indeed, no abhorrence of danger, except in its absolute effect - in terror. In this unnerved, in this pitiable, condition I feel that the period will sooner or later arrive when I must abandon life and reason together, in some struggle with the phantasm, fear.” (pg. 27). Furthermore, the narrator also notes that Roderick seems to be fearful of his own house. Pretty soon Roderick comes up with a theory saying the house isn’t healthy, just as the narrator was thinking at the beginning of the story.

I will present today the reasons why I chose this short story called “House Taken Over” by Julio Cortazar. A story not related directly with my culture which is Dominican but it is Hispanic which could be the same in some aspects. First of all, this is a story set in Argentina and it centers on a brother and his sister. The siblings lived in a big family home, which has been in the family for generations. Both of them are in their forties and have never been married. They spend their days cleaning and then doing what makes them happy. She knits all day and the brother loves to read French Literatures. The following quote would be a physical memory of the brother remember his days in his house “It was a pleasant to take a lunch and commune with the great hollow, silent house, and it was enough for us just to keep it clean. We ended up thinking, at times, that that was what had kept us from marrying. Irene turned down two suitors for no particular reason, and Maria Esther went and died on me before we could manage to get engaged” (Cortazar, p.689). One night they heard noises and they refused to go where the noises are originated from, therefore they decided to leave the house and basically left us with the question of who took over their house? I made some connections between this story and my culture back to my childhood. All those anecdotes that my parents and grandparents used to tell me about the way how people lived before and actually now. The FEAR always has been

A review of the house itself suggests that an architectural hierarchy of privacy increases level by level. At first, the house seems to foster romantic sensibilities; intrigued by its architectural connotations, the narrator embarks upon its description immediately--it is the house that she wants to "talk about" (Gilman 11). Together with its landscape, the house is a "most beautiful place" that stands "quite alone . . . well back from the road, quite three miles from the village" (Gilman 11). The estate's grounds, moreover, consist of "hedges and walls and gates that lock" (Gilman 11). As such, the house and its grounds are markedly depicted as mechanisms of confinement--ancestral places situated within a legacy of control and

In “The Fall of the House of Usher” the story starts with the narrator saying that he is overcome with a feeling of gloom upon first seeing the house. He compares the windows to vacant eyes. The narrator goes on to tell how the house appears to him but then tries to explain it away as his overactive imagination.

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,

reader feel a sense of dread and despair because unlike the house the reader knows the owners

The house is always being referred to as alive, and throughout the story different parts of the house are being talked about as though they are body parts of a human. "Minute fungi overspread the whole exterior," just as a disease or an illness would overcome a human body (Poe 716). They say the house has eye-like windows and are of a crimson red. The house is connected to the family and the family name, because this family is the only family to have ever lived in this house, and the house has `seen' everything that has gone on with the family from the very beginning. As long as the house stays up and strong the family name will remain and continue, but if the house were to crumble the family members in it would die with the house. Because the house is almost like their hearts, and as long as it's alive and well they will stay alive and well, and the family name will be carried on.