Unit 5-Prompt 1

At first, the withholding of information in House Taken Over and Night Face Up made it difficult to analyze why the events were happening in both stories. After rereading them however, the withholding of information was essential to the success of the stories because it made the extreme details that Julio Cortazar provided more relevant. In House Taken Over, the narrator that Cortazar does not give a name goes into great detail of the routine him and his sister, Irene, go through every day until the noise started to occur. The lifeless routine they both lived by everyday provides an excellent resource for deliberation as to what the noise is and why is it happening. Even though Cortazar went into great detail about the lives of the siblings, the withholding of the information about the noise provides more life into the uninteresting routine because there can be an argument that the lack of life the siblings had in the house caused the ghosts of their past family to scare them off and find a new life. Again, it is a theory that was interpreted by what Cortazar gave and did not give however, it provides more life into the short story.

As for Night Face Up, the little information about what time period the narrator was in made the story successful because it can made readers more engaged into the development of the plot, specially the little details that the narrator provided about death. For the most part of the story, there was a belief that the man kept dreaming of being attacked by Aztec warriors after getting into the accident until the plot twist at the end. When the story is reread again however, it became more obvious what exactly is the person dreaming. During the man’s time in the hospital, he was able to smell death during his dream and when he was wake–even though it was stated his life was not at risk after the accident. Also, one can question whether a typical person would make jokes after a person just had a motorcycle accident. The events that were occurring at the hospital can be debated as to whether that would ever happen in reality. As readers begin to notice the odd behavior in the hospital, it becomes apparent that the dream is actually the hospital and not the Aztec hunting him. It is interesting the way it was presented but a little difficult to understand at first.