House Taken Over Study Guide

Julio Cortázar was born in Belgium, where his parents were involved in Argentine diplomatic work. As a young child, he lived in Belgium, Switzerland, and Spain before moving to his parents’ home country, Argentina. His father left when he was six, and he spent the remainder of his childhood with his mother and sister, frequently bed-ridden due to ill health. Cortázar first worked as an elementary school teacher and completed coursework in languages and philosophy at the University of Buenos Aires. During this time, he published a collection of sonnets, a play, and several short stories. He continued to teach at several elementary schools and eventually as a Professor of French Literature at National University of Cuyo, though was forced to leave his role upon pressure from the Peron regime. He eventually emigrated to France in 1951, where he continued to live, though he traveled broadly until his death in 1984. Most of his major works were published during his years in Paris, including short story collections like Bestiario and novels like Hopscotch. Though he lived in France, Cortázar was deeply invested in the politics of Latin America, renouncing fascist and military dictatorships and supporting communist and socialist movements in Argentina, Chile, and Cuba.

“House Taken Over” is regarded as an anti-Peronist literary work. Peronism refers to the regime of Juan Peron, the president of Argentina from 1946-55. Peron rose to power after a military coup in 1943 and his tenure as president was considered a military dictatorship, where violence and manipulation were employed to maintain political power. The Peron administration was known for its nationalist and isolationist values, centering the people and concerns of Argentina and repudiating foreign affairs and influences. “House Taken Over” is most critical of this aspect of Peronism, which is mirrored in the narrator and Irene’s compulsion to isolate themselves from the world outside their own home and flee from the unknown. This story was published in 1946, the same year Cortázar was pushed to leave his professorship at the National University of Cuyo by Peronist interests.

“House Taken Over” and many of Julio Cortázar’s other writings belong to the magical realism movement. Magical realism incorporates elements of realism alongside the fantastical or surreal, and many trace its roots to Latin American writers of the 20th Century. Other examples include Isabel Allende’s House of the Spirits, Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s One Thousand Years of Solitude and In the Time of Cholera, and Jorge Luis Borges’ The Aelph. This style of fiction has spread widely in the last century. Notable works such as Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon, Haruki Murakami’s Wind-Up Bird Chronicles, and Salman Rushdie’s Satanic Verses are all examples of magical realism.