MULTIPLE INTERPRETATIONS OF “HOUSE” IN MANOLITO FOUR EYES SERIES

Abstract

By means of a precise geographical location, Manolito Four Eyes offers a literary, geographical and children´s collage of his house located in the Carabanchel Alto neighborhood. It involves a reading of the territorial, social, and cultural identity of this nuclear private space. This article proposes a
multidisciplinary approach that consists of interpreting the house in Manolito Four Eyes novels from humanistic, sociological, and phenomenological perspectives. The family house and its social production involves the family’s model of labor division. This influences how Catalina, the mother
of the protagonist, behaves in her daily life and in her way of instructing, or in how the room, an intimate space shared by the grandfather and grandson, strengthens their relationship, and becomes a pedagogical element through affection. Nowdays, given the COVID-19 pandemic, an analysis of
“houses” in children’s literature is even more meaningful for humans, both physically and mentally.