Firstly, Poe uses imagery and tortured characters in his short story, “The Fall of the House of Usher,” to show how and when reason is overcome by imagination. His manipulation of the …show more content…
“House Taken Over” unfolds within a large family home, where the bedrooms “...faced toward Rodriguez Pena, [in a city called] Buenos Aires…” (39). This realistic setting makes the story believable to the readers - they imagine the possibilities of a supernatural being residing in a real city. And when this supernatural being invades the large family home, the characters who live in it seem unfazed, as if they had been expecting it. However, “as happened frequently, neither of [them] could fall asleep” (41). This implies that the characters really did have fear in their hearts, surprising the readers. The reader's’ creative mind begins to question this behavior, and generates an image in his or her head that tries to put a face to the unspecified invaders. Altogether, Cortázar’s use of realistic setting and unimpressed tone creates fear in the readers’ minds as they illustrate their own monster within their mind to compensate for what is missing in the