Julio Cortazar's House Taken Over

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In the short story, “House Taken Over” the author, Julio Cortazar creates an atmosphere of by vaguely describing what the true conflict of the story is. The story mentions an unknown and unnamed intruder slowly taking over the narrator’s home, despite his efforts to contain it in the back half of the home. Upon first encountering the “antagonist”, the narrator upon hearing this ruckus neglects investigating, instead opting to coexist with whatever it is. Additionally, the narrator describes it as, “The sound [coming] through muted and indistinct, a chair being knocked over onto the carpet or the muffled buzz of a conversation” (39). He then, in the same paragraph, upon hearing these faint sounds, reacts instantly by hurling himself into the …show more content…
Finally, even as the story comes to an end the reader is never introduced to the antagonist. Perhaps this was intentionally done to allow the reader’s imagination create its own visual of the antagonist, which, if that’s the case makes this story rather timeless, but it also then uses the reader’s uncertainty to manifest their own fears as the narrator’s. “It wouldn’t do to have some poor devil decide to go in and rob the house, at the hour and with the house taken over” (42). The narrator is so distraught by whatever has invaded his home that he doesn’t even wish it’s wrath on a robber, which only supports the idea that someone’s own fears and worries are meant to embody the intruders in a way. From Cortazar’s continued presence of a nonspecific “evil” to almost crafting the reader’s uncertainties into the invader “House Taken Over” wonderfully displays how withholding information from the reader really allows a story to stand on its own. It’s the missing pieces in this story that keep the reader on their toes, hoping for some sort of explanation, but instead it leaves them to theorize and ponder it over, and in the end that’s what made this story
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