Julio Cortazar's Fear Of Fear

People become scared in their own minds because of paranoia and their own imagination. For instance, say you’re home alone and don’t have any animals and you hear a noise--your first emotion is most likely fear. Although you didn’t go check what made the sound or why it was made, you get scared and stay in one area until someone gets home or you call someone, it’s human nature. We make ourselves scared when there (usually) isn’t anything to be scared about. On the other hand, we purposely make ourselves scared sometimes by going to haunted houses, watching thriller movies, reading scary books, or watching horror shows.
In order to scare us, books, movies, and television shows will take the most ordinary things and make it into a monster. For instance, the movie IT takes a clown and turns it into

Since the Nazi’s had been in Argentina in 1946, and the short story was written in 1946, Julio Cortazar could have made a connection to the invasion of Nazi’s in Argentina.
The siblings in House Taken Over knew what was taking over their house and since the Nazi’s were going to Argentina at that time, it was probably the Nazi’s and that’s why they were scared about them invading, but calm at the same time because they expected it. In the end of the story, the siblings left their house before trying to fight back. This was a sign of paranoia inside their own minds; they didn’t think before they left, they just left without anything.
People get scared of their own thoughts and paranoia, as seen in House Taken Over. People’s imagination overpower what’s actually happening most of the time in real life. This is caused by scary movies, books, and television shows. When people don’t think before they do things because of fear, it often leads to worse situations. Therefore, I believe that our own mindset and imagination is what leads to fear and bad