La Casa Tomada

La Casa Tomada is a short story written by Julio Cortazar, an Argentine author, published in 1946 about the gradual take over of the house a set of siblings live in by a mysterious force.

Plot
The story begins with a set of siblings that live in their parents home after they inherited. Their lives are rather mundane, as they are both in their forties and have no significant others, with the narrator having lost his fiance some years ago, and the sister having denied the companionship of two potential suitors.

Its is not long into the story when the house is assaulted by something incorporeal, and our protagonists are unable to catch sight of the intruder and fall back deeper into the house, lamenting all the memories left behind in the captured section of the house. This intruder continues to advance and at the end of the story, the original occupants being force out, having never seen their intruder. The story ends with the narrator locking the house and throwing away the key in the sewer.

Analysis
During the 1940s when this story was published, the world had been at war for many years, with clashing ideals of communism, capitalism, and fascism. After the war, many Nazi leaders were seeking places to hide from the Soviet and US judgement regarding the numerous war atrocities and general crimes again humanity they had been apart of. Many were able to find passage to Argentina. Connecting this to the story, we see the dark force that overshadows the siblings and eventually drive them out of the home. This mirrors real life, as during the post-year wars, a bit of Nazi leadership was able to leak into Argentina, which was under Juan Peron at the time. It is clear to me, that Cortazar was against fascism, and this particular short story was a sort of warning of a situation that a rational Argentina could find itself in: kicked out of their own home, supplanted by a foreign influence.