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What literary elements can be found in "House Taken Over" by Julio Cortázar?

Julio Cortázar employs Magical Realism and Gothic techniques in his short story "House Taken Over":


  • Magical Realism (elements are in italics)

--One aspect of the story that might be identified as "realist description" is the portrait of the house in which the narrator and his sister dwell—it has been owned by generations before them and the siblings love it because it holds memories of ancestors and "the whole of childhood."
--Another aspect of Magical Realism is that time is "both history and the timeless" with the historic ancestral home and the occupancy of the siblings, who have both lost their opportunities to marry. They then seal themselves from time with their reclusive routine of cleaning the house and spending the rest of the day occupied with favorite pastimes of knitting and reading.
--The reader is torn between two concepts of reality. Apparently, there is a supernatural force that enters the house, but the brother, who narrates, describes the take-over of the house as though it were not unusual:



I'll always have a clear memory of it because it happened so simply and without fuss....The sound came through muted and indistinct....At the same time or a second later, I heard it at the end of the passage which led to those two rooms toward the door....



--After hearing these noises, the brother calmly goes to the kitchen, heats the kettle, and when he returns with their daily maté, he tells his sister that he had to shut the door to the passage. "They've taken over the back part" he says, apparently assuming that his sister knows who "they" are. There are two realms of reality.
--The siblings have their identities "broken down" as they surrender the house to the spirits and give up some of their favorite possessions. With an odd passivity, the brother and sister reside in their part of the house. Finally, when they hear noises in the kitchen and other areas which they usually occupy, they abandon the house without a word to each other or without even taking anything with them. Passively, the brother locks the front door tightly and throws the key into the sewer. He narrates with this same passivity:



We had what we had on. I remembered fifteen thousand pesos in the wardrobe in my bedroom. Too late now.



  • Gothic Techniques

--There is definitely a mysterious atmosphere to the house of the brother and sister.
--There are supernatural occurrences as the house becomes occupied by some type of spirits who move about and cause the brother and sister to run from them.
--The elements of gloom and horror are present as the brother and sister fearfully hide in the other part of the house where they are trapped and without the items they love. Then, after the brother hears the spirits on their side of the heavy oak door,



We stood listening to the noises, growing more and more sure that they were on our side of the oak door, if not the kitchen, then the bath, or in the hall itself at the turn, almost next to us.



So they must flee part of their house in fear of the spirits that have taken it over.

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