About houses, windows and views: An appointment with José Donoso and Henry James

Abstract

In José Donoso’s work, the representation of the house is done violence to by external discourses that break into the closed domestic space, altering the subject that inhabits it. However, in El obsceno pájaro de la noche and in some other author’s essays, the house supposes as well a methaliterary language that quotes Henry James’ reflection of what he defines as the house of fiction. In effect, the house is read as a metaphoric composition, given its assumption of the presence of the subject that represents the reality observed through a window.