Short Story : House Taken Over By Julio Cortazar

by Julio Cortazar so unique? Is it the characters who do the same thing repeatedly over and over again daily? Or is it the house that was considerably enormous? Maybe the creeks in the house that add scares to the story?

Quick Write Imagination overcomes reason when you a person feels scared. An example of this happening is in Julio Cortazar’s House Taken Over” they run away from their house because they hear noises. This proves that imagination overcomes reason because they don’t even go check what the noise was they just ran away. Another example is when you’re driving in the middle of nowhere and start to imagine things. Writing to Compare In

“It wouldn’t do to have some poor devil decide to go in and rob the house, at that hour and with the house taken over.” (Cortazar 42). Fantasy elements like this one are widely utilized and encompassed in the short story called "House Taken Over" by author, Julio Cortazar. Cortazar incorporates fantasy in this magical realism selection into the setting and details incorporated, the way the characters act, main events and the unimpressed tone also expresses a magical vibe. He entangles this magical theme into the aspect of realism. Within “House Taken Over’” there is a balanced amount of realistic and mystical events and features.

Fear is the ultimate emotion because it is both mankind’s greatest strength and greatest flaw. It gives us reason, but can also be irrational. If one can surpass their fears, it can reward them greatly. Robinson Crusoe, by Daniel Defoe, follows a life of an adventurer from a young age and his story of traveling the world. Robinson, the main character, gets into many dangerous situations, from being enslaved by pirates, to being shipwrecked and being stuck on a deserted island. Robinson has to conquer many fears. Another story that fear is prevalent in is Beowulf, which follows the story of a supernatural human, Beowulf, who fights multiple monsters that no mortal could defeat. Lastly, fear is prevalent in “The Wife

Decisions are what direct a average person's life. Some decisions are easy some are hard. But that’s the way of life and how it works.

Sometimes the hardest decisions are the most important, and are the ones that shape and sculpt your journey through life. Whenever I am faced with a dilemma, like whether to start a new episode of The Office on Netflix or to proofread my global history essay, I remember to take a step back to better analyze the situation which, at times can change my perspective.

Although several aspects of life are predetermined, there are moments people have control over their fate. For example, no one has control over death, and even though many refuse their undeniable fate, it cannot be avoided. However, there are choices we make that mold our future, thus, changing our fate. On various occasions, there will be a fork in one’s path, and that person will have to choose which journey to take. In life, there are small, ineffective decisions you have to resolve, but there are also larger, life altering choices. Of course, others may feel the same way about fate, or entirely different. In fact, since the beginning of time, authors of literature have discussed their ideas on such matters, a few examples being Dr. Seuss, Charles Dickens, and Edgar Allen Poe. These authors, famous for their thought provoking literary work, provide differing opinions on the fate and destiny of a human being through the use of allegory.

No matter who a person may be, everyone is faced with multiple choices from day to day. Whether the choice be life changing or what to eat for suppertime, there is an impact on the decision maker. Is there a line that must be crossed when making decisions in a life or death situation? In Octavia Butler’s best selling novel, Kindred, the main character, Dana Franklin, comes face to face with numerous decisions affecting her and those around her. In the novel, Dana uncontrollably travels back in time and gives perspective as a young black woman in the antebellum South. The time and place of which she travels to exacerbates her given situation. Each time she travels back in time, she is forced to make a decision. Through seeing her decisions in chronological order, the reader gets an image of how important decisions may be. In Kindred, Octavia Butler uses Dana’s choices in the face of conflict to portray the impact her choices had upon her survival.

People experience different emotions that can drastically change within seconds and, cannot remain controlled. During the course of “The Most Dangerous Game”, “Scarlet Ibis” and “The Use of Force”, the author demonstrates how a person can change from calm and collected to an assailant. Sickness comes in many forms, both physical and mental. Together both can affect emotions, actions which those two then lead into flaws and faults being revealed. All humans have flaws and the authors are attempting to aid the reader in understanding flaws and that can be embraced or overpower a person. The narrators and characters of these stories have many flaws these faults which are both extremely subtle and obvious.

make many decisions and if they choose wrong, it may cost them their lives or someone else’s in

Fate and free will are epic subjects in life. When we cannot control something we blame it on fate, but we try to change the way things are with our free will.

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

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,

All through life, we experience various occasions when decision-making become necessary. A number of them present themselves in difficult forms and at crucial points. Most of the verdict we take will eventually figure and describe our track of lives. These are what we refer to as lessons of life. Choices never present themselves in an easy way. In some instance we are always forced to pay a price to achieve something. This implies that we are trading for an outcome we are seeking.

“In the year of 1989, there was a street named Elm, in the state of Wyoming. Few chose to live on that street, and they all knew about the haunted house, up on the hill, on the west side of town, coming off of Elm. Once, I spent the week with some friends and, Halloween came upon us, while I stayed with them.” I was telling my first-grade brother and his friends stories to scare them out of their wits. Besides, no one wants little kids tagging along with you to go trick or treating, when you could go with your friends to Haunted Houses, and not ones set up by the town hall. “We were just about to pass the house, not thinking anything of it, when we heard a moan coming from Old Man Reaper’s house.” Their eyes grew wide with fear. Mr. G.