story.

The entire story can be considered an allegory for Peronism, or a form of Argentine populism. The narrator and his sister are representatives of the Argentine bourgeois class: they are idle most of the day, with money coming in from land rentals; the narrator reads French novels; there are only two of them but they live in a huge house; they take up more space than they need, in a family home that they did not earn, but rather was passed down to them. And yet their wealth and their space is being taken over by something (allegorically, the populace, the working class), cutting them down to size and leaving them with nothing. The line "Irene never bothered anyone" is critical within this reading of the story: she was minding her own business. She never went out, never contributed to society or the economy—the narrator did those things, and only rarely. The narrator is painting Irene as a victim of the working class's takeover; she loses everything, which is then presumably divided up among those who could not afford it.

On a less political note, Cortázar also uses suspense and foreshadowing to keep the reader on their toes: we never see what it is that is taking over the house; we only know that once they have invaded, there can be no going back. When the narrator first hears them,

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 from those two rooms toward the door. I hurled myself against the door before it was too late and shut it, leaned on it with the weight of my body; luckily, the key was on our side...

In this scene and the last are the only times we get a sense of urgency on the part of the narrator; he "hurled" himself against the door "before it was too late." The pace is quick here, and the sudden eruption of the existence of this "other" in the house leaves the reader with a suspenseful, ominous sense for the rest of the story. The "other" taking over this part of the house also foreshadows the taking over of the entire house at the end of the story.

The last element I will mention is the motif of collecting or gathering in the story: motes of dust "rise and hang in the air, and settle again a minute later on the pianos and the furniture." The siblings' income from the farms was "piling up"; Irene has hidden stacks of shawls in a drawer; and when the narrator finally flees, he abandons a large stack of money in his bedroom. This could be read (but is not necessarily intended) to be an indication of the wealth amassed by the middle class and the sheer amount of things amassed in capitalist society, despite their relative idleness and lack of need.

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.

"The House Taken Over" by Julio Cortazar is an archetypal Gothic story in the style of Edgar Allan Poe. In fact, with its aging brother and sister and large, mysterious house, one may be reminded of Poe's "The Fall of the House of Usher." Gothic literature often includes references to the supernatural; magic realism, a style most often used by Latin American writers, also presents supernatural characters and events that are seemingly accepted by the other characters as part of everyday life. 

In "The House Taken Over," the references to the supernatural are rather subtle, but we understand that the family home is gradually "taken over" by ghosts, probably ghosts of the ancestors referenced early in the story. The narrator says the house "kept the memories of great-grandparents, our paternal grandfather, our parents and the whole of childhood."

At first, this doesn't appear to be unusual, but it seems those ancestors take over portions of the house over the course of the story. Furthermore, the ghosts seem to be a threat to the siblings, as they will no longer go in those portions of the home that have been "taken over," and even lock themselves into their own section of the house. Over time, the ghosts even take over the siblings' own area, and they flee the house. The narrator seems to simply accept this at the end of the story when he says he "felt terrible," but drops the key into the sewer, since apparently the house cannot entered by anyone. In a way, the siblings seem to respect the ancestors' ownership of the house, or at least do not try to fight them. They resign themselves to leaving the house with that supernatural force. 

"Casa Tomada", or "House Taken Over, by Julio Cortázar is a representative of magical realism because the plot of the story can only be moved forward by the use of dynamics that are sustained by supernatural or magical intervention. 

This means that the author has free literary license to create characters and situations which are outside of the norm, and whose traits color the story even further. In Cortázar's case, he does use archetypes as his main characters; it is indeed his use of archetypes what moves the theme more effectively.

When analyzing the characters of Irene and the narrator, we do see the archetypes of the Gothic genre: two potentially disturbed individuals who have allowed life and fate to lead them, instead of them leading their own lives. They are isolated, seem quite tragic despite of living presumably "well", and suffer from the same kind of phobia. Hence, the themes of isolation, desolation, creeping insanity and mundane compulsion define the characters of Irene and the narrator, while effectively matching them to their surroundings, and to their immediate situation.

As a lonely pair of siblings, they have confined themselves to a house and to a routine of which little color or character actually come out. When they begin to hear "the noises" take over the different parts of the house, their tendency to routine is so strong that they simply move into another specific niche within the house where the noise had yet not caught up with them. Once the noise does enter their separate quarter, and the house is completely "taken over", the brother and sister will merely follow each other's lead of leaving the house for good and throwing the keys to the house in the sewer.

 The actions of the two leave a lot to the imagination, as well as the enigma of the noises in the house. However, this is the whole purpose of the story: to infer from the few cues given by the author on what exactly is going on in the house, or in the minds of the main characters. This is also archetypal of Gothic literature, as there is always a "perennial" mystery, curse, or situation permeating the plot. 

Conclusively, Cortázar does use a Gothic archetype in his type of characters and in the stylistic devices of the story in order to convey the themes effectively. 

You could probably find several idioms in Julio Cortázar’s short story “House Taken Over.” Remember, an idiom is a common expression that mostly only makes sense within a specific language or culture. For example, someone not familiar with English or American culture might not understand the idiom “raining cats and dogs.” They might not get that it's a popular way to talk about heavy rain.

Your search for idioms in Cortázar’s short story might reveal how idioms can sometimes transcend culture and language. Remember, Cortázar wrote the story in Spanish. Yet it appears as if Spanish idioms can translate to English idioms.

One idiom you could note happens when the brother mentions his and his sister’s financial situation. He says, “We didn’t have to earn our living.” This could be considered an idiom because, literally, people don’t earn a living. Humans don’t buy their way into existence. They don’t have to pay to be born. What the brother means by this idiom is that he and his sister don’t have to work or acquire extra money to afford the things they want and need in life.

Another idiom you could discuss occurs when the enigmatic beings begin their conquest of the house. The brother says, “I was a little lost without my books.” This could be considered an idiom because the brother isn’t actually lost. He knows where he is. He’s in his family home. When he says “lost,” he means something else. He probably means he’s having a hard time figuring out what to do since the mysterious things have deprived him of his reading materials.

In the story, Julio Cortázar presents an Argentine family, consisting of adult brother and sister, who reside in an old, once-elegant home in Buenos Aires. The brother, who is the unnamed first-person narrator, and his sister, Irene, are the last surviving members of their family. Both are unmarried, although Irene apparently had once been engaged.

As the story develops, other characters, who remain unseen, seem to be occupying the house. The narrator explains that in other parts of the house—where they rarely go—audible, invisible, and inexplicable events are happening. Rather than investigate and find out the cause of the “muted and indistinct” noises, which sound to him like “a chair being knocked over onto the carpet or the muffled buzzing or a conversation,” the brother securely locks the door to that room. He feels lucky that the key is on their side of the lock and recalls that this mysterious takeover “happened so simply and without fuss.”

The story is not overtly political but reflects Argentinian politics of the 1940s. The passivity of the upper-class people as they allow an alien force to inhabit and then take over their home echoes some Argentines’ view of the way that a silent majority ignored President Juan Perón’s persecution of intellectuals and political opponents. Cortázar lost his position as a university professor after Perón’s forces arrested him during a demonstration, and within a few years, he moved to Paris, where he remained for the rest of his life.