![]() ![]() Everything they left on that side-the narrator's books, Irene's slippers and stationary-is lost to them. They both tacitly accept that that side of the house is lost to them. Irene seems to know what he means by "they," and momentarily drops her knitting. When he brings the tray of mate to his sister, he tells her, "I had to shut the door to the passage. The narrator recognizes the sound-"muted and indistinct, a chair being knocked over into the carpet or the muffled buzzing of a conversation" (13)-and rushes to slam and bolt locked the mahogany door. One day, as the narrator puts on a pot of water for tea, he hears a rustling on the other side of the house, which is connected to the kitchen by a large, mahogany door. They take in more money than they can spend, and in this way they enjoy total financial freedom. The fact that it's wasteful to buy more yarn and knit more clothes that no one will ever wear doesn't matter, because the siblings live off of income from their family farms. The narrator doesn't have the heart to ask Irene what she expects to do with all the clothes. Once, the narrator finds a dresser full of garments gathering dust, enough to fill a shop with. When a garment she's knitting contains an imperfection, she will unravel it and start again. She's a perfectionist, always searching for new patterns to master. At the same time, he appreciates Irene's skill and her commitment to knitting all the time. He sees it as an excuse to do nothing at all. The narrator emphasizes Irene's predilection for knitting. The narrator reads his beloved books (he favors French literature). They take lunch at exactly noon every day, and afterwards, Irene knits. The narrator begins by describing his and Irene's daily routine, which is synchronized and quite boring and unchanging-their days are occupied by chores to keep up the enormous house that they live in, which has much more space than is needed for two people. Both of the siblings are "easing into" their forties and are unmarried and resigned to the idea that they will both grow old, unmarried, in this house together. "House Taken Over" is narrated from the first-person perspective of an unnamed man who lives in his ancestral home in Argentina with his sister, Irene. ![]()
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