The Feast of the Goat
Encyclopedia
The Feast of the Goat is a novel
by the Peru
vian Nobel Prize in Literature laureate Mario Vargas Llosa
. The book is set in the Dominican Republic
and portrays the assassination of Dominican dictator Rafael Leónidas Trujillo
, and its aftermath, from two distinct standpoints a generation apart: during and immediately after the assassination itself, in May 1961; and thirty years later, in 1996. Throughout, there is also extensive reflection on the heyday of the dictatorship, in the 1950s, and its significance for the island and its inhabitants.
The novel follows three interwoven storylines. The first concerns a woman, Urania Cabral, who is back in the Dominican Republic, after a long absence, to visit her ailing father; she ends up recalling incidents from her youth and recounting a long-held secret to her aunt and cousin. The second story line focuses on the last day in Trujillo's life from the moment he wakes up onwards, and shows us the regime's inner circle, to which Urania's father once belonged. The third strand depicts Trujillo's assassins, many of whom had previously been government loyalists, as they wait for his car late that night; after the assassination, this story line shows us the assassins' persecution. Each aspect of the book's plot reveals a different viewpoint on the Dominican Republic's political and social environment, past and present.
Readers are shown the regime's downward spiral, Trujillo's assassination, and its aftermath through the eyes of insiders, conspirators, and a middle-aged woman looking back. The novel is therefore a kaleidoscopic portrait of dictatorial power, including its psychological effects, and its long-term impact. The novel's themes include the nature of power and corruption, and their relationship to machismo and sexual perversion in a rigidly hierarchical society with strongly gendered roles. Memory, and the process of remembering, is also an important theme, especially in Urania's narrative as she recalls her youth in the Dominican Republic. Her story (and the book as a whole) ends when she recounts the terrible events that led to her leaving the country at the age of 14. The book itself serves as a reminder of the atrocities of dictatorship, to ensure that the dangers of absolute power will be remembered by a new generation.
Vargas Llosa interlaces fictional elements and historical events: the book is not a documentary, and the Cabral family, for instance, is completely fictional. On the other hand, the characters of Trujillo and Trujillo's assassins are drawn from the historical record; Vargas Llosa weaves real historical incidents of brutality and oppression into these people's stories, to further illuminate the nature of the regime and the responses it provoked. In Vargas Llosa's words, "It's a novel, not a history book, so I took many, many liberties. [. . .] I have respected the basic facts, but I have changed and deformed many things in order to make the story more persuasive—and I have not exaggerated."
The Feast of the Goat received largely positive reviews, with several reviewers commenting on the book's depiction of the relationship between sexuality and power, and on the graphic descriptions of violent events.
A film version of the novel was released in 2005, starring Isabella Rossellini
, Paul Freeman, and Tomas Milian
. Jorge Alí Triana and his daughter Veronica Triana wrote a theatrical adaptation in 2003.
). It is also unusual because it is the first to have a female protagonist
: as critic Lynn Walford writes of the leading character in The Feast of the Goat, and also Vargas Llosa's subsequent book The Way to Paradise
, "both are utterly unlike any of the other female characters in his previous novels".
The novel examines the dictatorial regime of Rafael Leónidas Trujillo Molina in the Dominican Republic
. Trujillo was, in historian Eric Roorda's words, "a towering influence in Dominican and Caribbean
history" who presided over "one of the most durable regimes of the twentieth century" during the thirty-one years between his seizure of power in 1930 and his assassination in 1961. Trujillo had trained with the United States Marine Corps
during the United States occupation of the island, and graduated from the Haina Military Academy in 1921. After the U.S. departed in 1924, he became head of the Dominican National Police which, under his command, was transformed into the Dominican National Army and Trujillo's personal "virtually autonomous power base".
Trujillo was officially dictator only from 1930 to 1938, and from 1942 to 1952, but remained in effective power throughout the entire period. Though his regime was broadly nationalist
, Daniel Chirot comments that he had "no particular ideology" and that his economic and social policies were basically progressive
.
The novel's title is taken from the popular Dominican merengue
Mataron al chivo ("They Killed the Goat"), which refers to Trujillo's assassination on May 30, 1961. Merengue
is a style of music created by Ñico Lora
in the 1920s and actively promoted by Trujillo himself; it is now considered the country's national music. Cultural critics Julie Sellers and Stephen Ropp comment about this particular merengue that, by envisaging the dictator as an animal who could be turned into a stew
(as frequently happened with goats struck down on the Dominican Republic's highways), the song "gave those performing, listening to and dancing to this merengue a sense of control over him and over themselves that they had not experienced for over three decades." Vargas Llosa quotes the lyrics to Mataron al chivo at the beginning of the novel.
to periods earlier in Trujillo's regime
.
The Feast of the Goat begins with the return of Urania to her hometown of Santo Domingo
, a city which had been renamed Ciudad Trujillo during Trujillo's time in power. This storyline is largely introspective and deals with Urania's memories and her inner turmoil over the events preceding her departure from the Dominican Republic
thirty-five years earlier. Urania escaped the crumbling Trujillo regime in 1961 by claiming she planned to study under the tutelage of nuns in Michigan. In the following decades, she becomes a prominent and successful New York lawyer. She finally returns to the Dominican Republic in 1996, on a whim, and finds herself compelled to confront her father and elements of her past she has long ignored. As Urania speaks to her ailing father, Agustin Cabral, she recalls more and more of the anger and disgust that led to her thirty-five years of silence. Urania retells her father's descent into political disgrace, and the betrayal that forms the crux of both Urania's storyline and that of Trujillo himself.
The second and third storylines are set in 1961, in the weeks prior to and following Trujillo's assassination on the 30th of May. Each assassin has his own background story, explaining his motivation for his involvement in the assassination plot. Each has been wronged by Trujillo and his regime, by torture and brutality, or through assaults on their pride, their religious faith, their morality, or their loved ones. Vargas Llosa weaves the tale of the men as memories recalled on the night of Trujillo's death, as the conspirators lie in wait for "The Goat". Interconnected with these stories are the actions of other famous Trujillistas of the time; Joaquín Balaguer
, the puppet president, Johnny Abbes García
, the merciless head of the Military Intelligence Service (SIM), and various others—some real, some composites of historical figures, and some purely fictional.
The third storyline is concerned with the thoughts and motives of Rafael Leónidas Trujillo Molina himself. The chapters concerning The Goat recall the major events of his time, including the slaughter of thousands of Dominican Haiti
ans in 1937. They also deal with the Dominican Republic's tense international relationships during the Cold War
, especially with the United States under the presidency of John F. Kennedy
, and Cuba
under Castro
. Vargas Llosa also speculates upon Trujillo's innermost thoughts and paints a picture of a man whose physical body is failing him. Trujillo is tormented by incontinence and impotence; and this storyline intersects with Urania's narrative when it is revealed that Urania was sexually assaulted by Trujillo. He is unable to achieve an erection with Urania, and in frustration and anger he rapes her with his hands. This event is the core of Urania's shame, and her hatred towards her father. In addition, it is the cause of Trujillo's repeated anger over the "anemic little bitch" that witnessed his impotence and emotion, and the reason he is en route to sleep with another girl on the night of his assassination.
In the novel's final chapters, the three storylines intersect with increasing frequency. The tone of these chapters is especially dark as they deal primarily with the horrific torture and death of the assassins at the hands of the SIM, the failure of the coup, the rape of Urania, and the concessions made to Trujillo's most vicious supporters allowing them to enact their horrific revenge on the conspirators and then escape the country. The book ends as Urania prepares to return home, determined this time to keep in touch with her family back on the island.
Rafael Trujillo, known also as The Goat, The Chief, and The Benefactor, is a fictionalized character based on the real dictator of the Dominican Republic
from 1930 to 1961 and the official President of the Republic from 1930 to 1938 and 1943 to 1952. In The Feast of the Goat, Vargas Llosa imagines the innermost thoughts of the dictator, and retells The Goat's last hours from his own perspective.
Trujillo's character struggles with aging and the physical problems of incontinence and impotence. Through fictional events and first person narrative, the reader is given insight into the man who, during his "thirty-one years of horrendous political crimes", modernized the country's infrastructure and military, but whose regime's attacks against its enemies overseas (particularly the attempted assassination of Rómulo Betancourt
, president of Venezuela
) led to the imposition of economic sanctions on the Dominican Republic by the Organization of American States
in the 1950s. The resultant economic downturn, in conjunction with other factors, leads to the CIA supported assassination plot that ends Trujillo's life on May 30, 1961.
Trujillo's regime is supported by Johnny Abbes García
, the head of the Military Intelligence Service (SIM), a brutal man to whom many "disappearances, ... executions, ... sudden falls into disgrace" are attributed. García and his intelligence officers are notorious for their cruelty, particularly their habit of killing dissidents by throwing them into shark-infested waters. Colonel García "may be the devil, but he's useful to the Chief; everything bad is attributed to him and only the good to Trujillo". Trujillo's son, Ramfis Trujillo
, is a loyal supporter of the Chief. After unsuccessful attempts at schooling in the United States, Ramfis returns to the Dominican Republic to serve in his father's military. He is a well-known womanizer. Upon Trujillo's death, Ramfis seeks revenge, even going so far as to torture and kill his uncle by marriage, General Jose Roman, for his part in the assassination conspiracy.
Joaquín Balaguer
, Trujillo's puppet president is also a supporter, and initially his seemingly innocuous character holds no real power. Following Trujillo's death, the calm and serenity of Balaguer bring about real change in his character, and General Román comments that "this insignificant man whom everyone had always considered a mere clerk, a purely decorative figure in the regime, began to acquire surprising authority". It is Balaguer who guides much of the action in the last sections of the book.
Antonio Imbert Barrera
is one of the few conspirators who survives the violent reprisals that follow Trujillo's assassination. Imbert is a politician who becomes disillusioned with the deception and cruelty of the Trujillo regime. His first plan to kill Trujillo was foiled by the unsuccessful attempted overthrow of the regime by Cuban paramilitary
forces. Now convinced of the difficulty of his task, Imbert joins the other conspirators in plotting Trujillo's death. Among the others is Antonio de la Maza, one of Trujillo's personal guards. Antonio's brother is killed as part of a government cover-up and Antonio swears revenge upon Trujillo. Salvador Estrella Sadhalá, known as "Turk", is a devout Catholic who, in indignation at the regime's many crimes against God, swears an oath against Trujillo. Turk eventually turns himself in for fear that the regime was torturing his family. Both Turk and his innocent brother are then tortured for months. His father remains loyal to Trujillo and disowns Turk to his face. Despite all of this, Turk refuses to commit suicide and does not lose faith in God. He is later executed by Ramfis and other high level government men. Turk's close friend, Amado García Guerrero
, known as Amadito, is a Lieutenant in the army who gave up his beloved as proof of his loyalty to Trujillo, and then later was forced to kill her brother to prove himself to Trujillo. Amadito's disgust with himself and disillusionment with the regime lead to his decision to help to kill Trujillo. Following the assassination he hides out with de la Maza and dies fighting. In the aftermath of the assassination, Amadito and Antonio de la Maza choose to fight the members of SIM who come to arrest them, opting to die in battle rather than be captured and tortured.
. Rafael Trujillo, the ruler, was a cruel dictator
who haunts the people of Santo Domingo
even 35 years after his death. He is a true caudillo
, ruling with brutality and corruption. He creates a personality cult in his capitalist society and encourages decadence within his regime. Prior to promotion to a position of responsibility, an officer is required to pass a "test of loyalty". His people are to remain loyal to him all cost, and are periodically tested by public humiliation and censure even though acts of disloyalty were rare. Trujillo violates women and children as an expression of political and sexual power, and in some cases takes the wife or child of his lieutenants, many of whom still remain blindly loyal. Even the church and military institutions are employed to give women to the tyrant for pleasure.
Many of the assassins had belonged to the Trujillo regime or had at one point been its staunch supporters, only to find their support for him eroded by the state's crimes against its people. Imbert, one of the assassins, sums up this realization in a comment prompted by the murder of the Mirabal sisters
: "They kill our fathers, our brothers, our friends. And now they're killing our women. And here we sit, resigned, waiting our turn." In an interview, Vargas Llosa describes the corruption and brutality of Trujillo's regime: "He had more or less all the common traits of a Latin American dictator, but pushed to the extreme. In cruelty, I think he went far far away from the rest—and in corruption, too."
are aggressive behaviour and hyper-sexuality. Aggressive behaviour is exhibited by displays of power and strength, while hyper-sexuality is revealed through sexual activity with as many partners as possible. These two components shape the portrayal of Trujillo and his regime in The Feast of the Goat. As Lorenzo observes, Vargas Llosa "reveals traditions of machismo, of abusive fathers, and of child-rearing practices that repeat the shaming of children, so that each generation bequeaths a withering of the soul to the subsequent one."
In a display of both aspects of machismo, Trujillo demanded of his aides and cabinet that they provide him with sexual access to their wives and daughters. Mario Vargas Llosa wrote of Trujillo's machismo and treatment of women, "[h]e went to bed with his ministers' wives, not only because he liked these ladies but because it was a way to test his ministers. He wanted to know if they were ready to accept this extreme humiliation. Mainly the ministers were prepared to play this grotesque role—and they remained loyal to Trujillo even after his death." Trujillo's sexual conquests and public humiliations of his enemies also serve to affirm his political power and machismo. In Niessa's words, "The implication is that maximum virility equals political dominance."
Trujillo's attempted sexual conquest of Urania is an example of both political manipulation of Agustín Cabral and sexual power over young women. However, as Trujillo's penis
remains flaccid throughout the encounter and he is humiliated in front of the young girl, the encounter fails to satisfy his requirements for machismo.
in some sense or another. The most apparent confrontation of memory is on the part of Urania Cabral, who has returned to the Dominican Republic for the first time in 30 years, and is forced to confront her father and the traumas that led her to leave the country at 14. She was the victim of sexual abuse at the hands of the dictator himself, a sacrifice her father made to try to gain favor with the dictator again, a fact to which she alludes throughout the book, but which is only revealed at the very end: the book concludes with her recounting the memory of that night to her aunt and cousins, who never knew the true reason she left the country. When her aunt is surprised that she remembers all these details, she responds that while she forgets many things, "I remember everything about that night." For Urania, forgetting the atrocities committed by the regime is unacceptable. Her father, on the other hand, is not capable of joining her in this process of remembering, since he has suffered a stroke
and is not capable of speaking; however, Urania is angry that he chose to forget these things while he was still capable of acknowledging them.
Memory is also important in the sections of the novel that deal with the assassins. Each recalls the events that led him to take part in the assassination of Trujillo. These incidents included the 1956 Galindez kidnapping and murder, the 1960 murder of the Mirabal sisters
, and the 1961 split with the Catholic Church. These historical events are used by Vargas Llosa to connect the assassins with specific moments that demonstrate the violence of Trujillo's regime. Trujillo, too, is shown reflecting on the past, not least his own formation and training at the hands of the US Marines.
But above all Mario Vargas Llosa uses the fictional Urania to facilitate the novel's attempt at remembering the regime. The novel opens and closes with Urania's story, effectively framing the narrative in the terms of remembering the past and understanding its legacy in the present. In addition, because of her academic study of the history of the Trujillo regime, Urania is also confronting the memory of the regime for the country as a whole. This is in keeping with one purpose of the book, which is to ensure that the atrocities of the dictatorship and the dangers of absolute power will be remembered by a new generation.
Ruiz notes that writing also has the power to transform reality. It brings the reader back to the past, allowing the reader to comprehend myths or distorted stories told by historians. Ruiz contends that knowing the past is crucial to one's understanding of the present that takes us to postmodernism
, and argues that The Feast of the Goat can thus be seen as a postmodern discourse that gives power to history recreation.
The construction of fictions surrounding the events of Trujillo's regime allow a degree of freedom from the horrors that took places. Author Julia Alvarez contends that these events can "only finally be understood by fiction, only finally be redeemed by the imagination", while Richard Patterson claims that Vargas Llosa "reconfigures, and to a large degree demythologizes" Trujillo and his brutal reign through use of narrative structure
. Vargas Llosa's writing acts as a cathartic force for this period in history.
, but especially in The Feast of the Goat because Vargas Llosa chose to narrate an actual event through the minds of both real and fictional characters. Some characters are fictional, and those that are non-fictional still have fictionalized aspects in the book. The general details of the assassination are true, and the assassins are all real people. While they lie in wait for the Dictator to arrive, they recount actual crimes of the regime, such as the murder of the Mirabal sisters. However, other details are invented by Vargas Llosa, such as Amadito's murder of the brother of the woman he loved.
Those within the regime are also a mix of fictional characters and real people. President Balaguer
is real, but the entire Cabral family is completely fictional. According to Wolff, Vargas Llosa "uses history as a starting point in constructing a fictionalized account of Trujillo's "spiritual colonization" of the Dominican Republic as experienced by one Dominican family. The fictional Cabral family allows Vargas Llosa to show two sides of the Trujillo regime: through Agustin, the reader sees ultimate dedication and sacrifice to the leader of the nation; through Urania, the violence of the regime and the legacy of pain it left behind. Vargas Llosa also fictionalized the internal thoughts of the characters who were non-fictional, especially those of the Goat himself. According to literary scholar Richard Patterson, "Vargas Llosa's expands all the way into the very "dark area" of Trujillo's consciousness (as the storyteller dares to conceive it)."
Vargas Llosa also built an image of the regime with the troubled historical events. With regard to the historical accuracy of the book, Vargas Llosa has said "It's a novel, not a history book, so I took many, many liberties. The only limitation I imposed on myself was that I was not going to invent anything that couldn't have happened within the framework of life in the Dominican Republic. I have respected the basic facts, but I have changed and deformed many things in order to make the story more persuasive—and I have not exaggerated."
. The novel received largely positive reviews, most of which were willing to accept sacrifices of historical accuracy in favour of good storytelling.
A common comment on the novel is the graphic nature of the many acts of torture and murder which are depicted in the novel. Vargas lets the reader see the realities of an oppressive regime with a degree of detail not often used by his compatriots in Latin American literature, as Michael Wood suggests in the London Review of Books
: "Vargas Llosa ... tells us far more about the details of day-to-day intrigue, and the sordid, sadistic minutiae of torture and murder." Walter Kirn of the New York Times suggests that the "grisly scenes of dungeon interrogations and torture sessions" cast other aspects of the novel in a pale light, draining them of their significance and impact. Similarly, Kirn implies that the "narrative machinery" mentioned by Wood as being somewhat unwieldy also produces a largely superfluous storyline. The plot line centered on Urania Cabral is described by Sturrock as being an emotional centre that focuses the novel, and Wood agrees that her confrontations with past demons hold the readers attention. In contrast, Kirn's review states that Urania's segments are "talky and atmospheric ... [and] seem to be on loan from another sort of book."
Most reviews of The Feast of the Goat make either indirect of direct reference to the relationship between sexuality and power. Salon
reviewer Laura Miller, writer for The Observer
Jonathan Heawood, Walter Kirn, and Michael Wood each detail the connection between Trujillo's gradual loss of ultimate control, both over his body and his followers. The means by which Trujillo reinforces political power through sexual acts and begins to lose personal conviction as his body fails him are topics of frequent discussion among reviewers.
, Mario Vargas Llosa's cousin. It stars Isabella Rossellini
as Urania Cabral, Paul Freeman as her father Agustin, Stephanie Leonidas
as Uranita and Tomas Milian
as Rafael Leonidas Trujillo. It was filmed in both the Dominican Republic and in Spain. Reviewing the film for the trade paper Variety, critic Jonathan Holland called it "less a feast than a somewhat rushed, but thoroughly enjoyable, three-course meal", commenting that the main difference from the source novel was the sacrifice of psychological nuance.
The novel has also been adapted for the stage
, by Jorge Alí Triana and his daughter Veronica Triana, directed by Jorge Triana: the play was put on (in Spanish, but with simultaneous translation to English) at Repertorio Español (www.repertorio.org/chivo) in New York in 2003; and the production moved to Lima in 2007. A feature of the novel's stage version is that the same actor plays both Agustin Cabral and Rafael Trujillo. For reviewer Bruce Weber, this makes the point "that Trujillo's control of the nation depended on gutless collaborators".
Novel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
by the Peru
Peru
Peru , officially the Republic of Peru , is a country in western South America. It is bordered on the north by Ecuador and Colombia, on the east by Brazil, on the southeast by Bolivia, on the south by Chile, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean....
vian Nobel Prize in Literature laureate Mario Vargas Llosa
Mario Vargas Llosa
Jorge Mario Pedro Vargas Llosa, 1st Marquis of Vargas Llosa is a Peruvian-Spanish writer, politician, journalist, essayist, and Nobel Prize laureate. Vargas Llosa is one of Latin America's most significant novelists and essayists, and one of the leading authors of his generation...
. The book is set in the Dominican Republic
Dominican Republic
The Dominican Republic is a nation on the island of La Hispaniola, part of the Greater Antilles archipelago in the Caribbean region. The western third of the island is occupied by the nation of Haiti, making Hispaniola one of two Caribbean islands that are shared by two countries...
and portrays the assassination of Dominican dictator Rafael Leónidas Trujillo
Rafael Leónidas Trujillo
Rafael Leónidas Trujillo Molina , nicknamed El Jefe , ruled the Dominican Republic from 1930 until his assassination in 1961. He officially served as president from 1930 to 1938 and again from 1942 to 1952, otherwise ruling as an unelected military strongman...
, and its aftermath, from two distinct standpoints a generation apart: during and immediately after the assassination itself, in May 1961; and thirty years later, in 1996. Throughout, there is also extensive reflection on the heyday of the dictatorship, in the 1950s, and its significance for the island and its inhabitants.
The novel follows three interwoven storylines. The first concerns a woman, Urania Cabral, who is back in the Dominican Republic, after a long absence, to visit her ailing father; she ends up recalling incidents from her youth and recounting a long-held secret to her aunt and cousin. The second story line focuses on the last day in Trujillo's life from the moment he wakes up onwards, and shows us the regime's inner circle, to which Urania's father once belonged. The third strand depicts Trujillo's assassins, many of whom had previously been government loyalists, as they wait for his car late that night; after the assassination, this story line shows us the assassins' persecution. Each aspect of the book's plot reveals a different viewpoint on the Dominican Republic's political and social environment, past and present.
Readers are shown the regime's downward spiral, Trujillo's assassination, and its aftermath through the eyes of insiders, conspirators, and a middle-aged woman looking back. The novel is therefore a kaleidoscopic portrait of dictatorial power, including its psychological effects, and its long-term impact. The novel's themes include the nature of power and corruption, and their relationship to machismo and sexual perversion in a rigidly hierarchical society with strongly gendered roles. Memory, and the process of remembering, is also an important theme, especially in Urania's narrative as she recalls her youth in the Dominican Republic. Her story (and the book as a whole) ends when she recounts the terrible events that led to her leaving the country at the age of 14. The book itself serves as a reminder of the atrocities of dictatorship, to ensure that the dangers of absolute power will be remembered by a new generation.
Vargas Llosa interlaces fictional elements and historical events: the book is not a documentary, and the Cabral family, for instance, is completely fictional. On the other hand, the characters of Trujillo and Trujillo's assassins are drawn from the historical record; Vargas Llosa weaves real historical incidents of brutality and oppression into these people's stories, to further illuminate the nature of the regime and the responses it provoked. In Vargas Llosa's words, "It's a novel, not a history book, so I took many, many liberties. [. . .] I have respected the basic facts, but I have changed and deformed many things in order to make the story more persuasive—and I have not exaggerated."
The Feast of the Goat received largely positive reviews, with several reviewers commenting on the book's depiction of the relationship between sexuality and power, and on the graphic descriptions of violent events.
A film version of the novel was released in 2005, starring Isabella Rossellini
Isabella Rossellini
Isabella Fiorella Elettra Giovanna Rossellini is an Italian actress, filmmaker, author, philanthropist, and model. Rossellini is noted for her 14-year tenure as a Lancôme model, and for her roles in films such as Blue Velvet and Death Becomes Her.-Background and early life:Rossellini is a...
, Paul Freeman, and Tomas Milian
Tomas Milian
Tomás Milián is a Cuban-American actor best known for having worked extensively in Italian films from the late 1950s to the 1980s.-Career in Italy:...
. Jorge Alí Triana and his daughter Veronica Triana wrote a theatrical adaptation in 2003.
Background
The Feast of the Goat is only the second of Vargas Llosa's novels to be set outside Peru (the first being The War of the End of the WorldThe War of the End of the World
The War of the End of the World is a 1981 novel written by Peruvian novelist Mario Vargas Llosa. It is a novelization of the War of Canudos conflict in late 19th-century Brazil.-Plot summary:...
). It is also unusual because it is the first to have a female protagonist
Protagonist
A protagonist is the main character of a literary, theatrical, cinematic, or musical narrative, around whom the events of the narrative's plot revolve and with whom the audience is intended to most identify...
: as critic Lynn Walford writes of the leading character in The Feast of the Goat, and also Vargas Llosa's subsequent book The Way to Paradise
The Way to Paradise
The Way to Paradise is a novel published by Mario Vargas Llosa in 2003.The novel is a historical double biography of Post-Impressionist painter Paul Gauguin and his grandmother Flora Tristan, one of the founders of feminism. The book is divided into 11 chapters, each alternating narratives of...
, "both are utterly unlike any of the other female characters in his previous novels".
The novel examines the dictatorial regime of Rafael Leónidas Trujillo Molina in the Dominican Republic
Dominican Republic
The Dominican Republic is a nation on the island of La Hispaniola, part of the Greater Antilles archipelago in the Caribbean region. The western third of the island is occupied by the nation of Haiti, making Hispaniola one of two Caribbean islands that are shared by two countries...
. Trujillo was, in historian Eric Roorda's words, "a towering influence in Dominican and Caribbean
Caribbean
The Caribbean is a crescent-shaped group of islands more than 2,000 miles long separating the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, to the west and south, from the Atlantic Ocean, to the east and north...
history" who presided over "one of the most durable regimes of the twentieth century" during the thirty-one years between his seizure of power in 1930 and his assassination in 1961. Trujillo had trained with the United States Marine Corps
United States Marine Corps
The United States Marine Corps is a branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for providing power projection from the sea, using the mobility of the United States Navy to deliver combined-arms task forces rapidly. It is one of seven uniformed services of the United States...
during the United States occupation of the island, and graduated from the Haina Military Academy in 1921. After the U.S. departed in 1924, he became head of the Dominican National Police which, under his command, was transformed into the Dominican National Army and Trujillo's personal "virtually autonomous power base".
Trujillo was officially dictator only from 1930 to 1938, and from 1942 to 1952, but remained in effective power throughout the entire period. Though his regime was broadly nationalist
Nationalism
Nationalism is a political ideology that involves a strong identification of a group of individuals with a political entity defined in national terms, i.e. a nation. In the 'modernist' image of the nation, it is nationalism that creates national identity. There are various definitions for what...
, Daniel Chirot comments that he had "no particular ideology" and that his economic and social policies were basically progressive
Progressivism
Progressivism is an umbrella term for a political ideology advocating or favoring social, political, and economic reform or changes. Progressivism is often viewed by some conservatives, constitutionalists, and libertarians to be in opposition to conservative or reactionary ideologies.The...
.
The novel's title is taken from the popular Dominican merengue
Merengue music
Merengue is a type of music and dance from the Dominican Republic. It is popular in the Dominican Republic and all over Latin America. Its name is Spanish, taken from the name of the meringue, a dessert made from whipped egg whites and sugar...
Mataron al chivo ("They Killed the Goat"), which refers to Trujillo's assassination on May 30, 1961. Merengue
Merengue music
Merengue is a type of music and dance from the Dominican Republic. It is popular in the Dominican Republic and all over Latin America. Its name is Spanish, taken from the name of the meringue, a dessert made from whipped egg whites and sugar...
is a style of music created by Ñico Lora
Ñico Lora
Francisco Antonio Lora Cabrera popularly known as Ñico Lora was a Dominican folk musician consider as one of the fathers of Merengue....
in the 1920s and actively promoted by Trujillo himself; it is now considered the country's national music. Cultural critics Julie Sellers and Stephen Ropp comment about this particular merengue that, by envisaging the dictator as an animal who could be turned into a stew
Stew
A stew is a combination of solid food ingredients that have been cooked in liquid and served in the resultant gravy. Ingredients in a stew can include any combination of vegetables , meat, especially tougher meats suitable for slow-cooking, such as beef. Poultry, sausages, and seafood are also used...
(as frequently happened with goats struck down on the Dominican Republic's highways), the song "gave those performing, listening to and dancing to this merengue a sense of control over him and over themselves that they had not experienced for over three decades." Vargas Llosa quotes the lyrics to Mataron al chivo at the beginning of the novel.
Plot summary
The novel's narrative is divided into three distinct strands. One is centred on Urania Cabral, a fictional Dominican character; another deals with the conspirators involved in Trujillo's assassination; and the third focuses on Trujillo himself. The novel alternates between these storylines, and also jumps back and forth from 1961 to 1996, with frequent flashbacksFlashback (narrative)
Flashback is an interjected scene that takes the narrative back in time from the current point the story has reached. Flashbacks are often used to recount events that happened before the story’s primary sequence of events or to fill in crucial backstory...
to periods earlier in Trujillo's regime
Regime
The word regime refers to a set of conditions, most often of a political nature.-Politics:...
.
The Feast of the Goat begins with the return of Urania to her hometown of Santo Domingo
Santo Domingo
Santo Domingo, known officially as Santo Domingo de Guzmán, is the capital and largest city in the Dominican Republic. Its metropolitan population was 2,084,852 in 2003, and estimated at 3,294,385 in 2010. The city is located on the Caribbean Sea, at the mouth of the Ozama River...
, a city which had been renamed Ciudad Trujillo during Trujillo's time in power. This storyline is largely introspective and deals with Urania's memories and her inner turmoil over the events preceding her departure from the Dominican Republic
Dominican Republic
The Dominican Republic is a nation on the island of La Hispaniola, part of the Greater Antilles archipelago in the Caribbean region. The western third of the island is occupied by the nation of Haiti, making Hispaniola one of two Caribbean islands that are shared by two countries...
thirty-five years earlier. Urania escaped the crumbling Trujillo regime in 1961 by claiming she planned to study under the tutelage of nuns in Michigan. In the following decades, she becomes a prominent and successful New York lawyer. She finally returns to the Dominican Republic in 1996, on a whim, and finds herself compelled to confront her father and elements of her past she has long ignored. As Urania speaks to her ailing father, Agustin Cabral, she recalls more and more of the anger and disgust that led to her thirty-five years of silence. Urania retells her father's descent into political disgrace, and the betrayal that forms the crux of both Urania's storyline and that of Trujillo himself.
The second and third storylines are set in 1961, in the weeks prior to and following Trujillo's assassination on the 30th of May. Each assassin has his own background story, explaining his motivation for his involvement in the assassination plot. Each has been wronged by Trujillo and his regime, by torture and brutality, or through assaults on their pride, their religious faith, their morality, or their loved ones. Vargas Llosa weaves the tale of the men as memories recalled on the night of Trujillo's death, as the conspirators lie in wait for "The Goat". Interconnected with these stories are the actions of other famous Trujillistas of the time; Joaquín Balaguer
Joaquín Balaguer
Joaquín Antonio Balaguer Ricardo was the President of the Dominican Republic from 1960 to 1962, from 1966 to 1978, and again from 1986 to 1996.-Early life and introduction to politics:...
, the puppet president, Johnny Abbes García
Johnny Abbes García
Johnny Abbes García was the chief of the governmental intelligence office during the Rafael Trujillo dictatorship in the Dominican Republic. A man of violence and a murderer, he ruled under Trujillo during the end of his era, and later served Duvalier in Haiti.-Rise to power:Abbes was born in 1924...
, the merciless head of the Military Intelligence Service (SIM), and various others—some real, some composites of historical figures, and some purely fictional.
The third storyline is concerned with the thoughts and motives of Rafael Leónidas Trujillo Molina himself. The chapters concerning The Goat recall the major events of his time, including the slaughter of thousands of Dominican Haiti
Haiti
Haiti , officially the Republic of Haiti , is a Caribbean country. It occupies the western, smaller portion of the island of Hispaniola, in the Greater Antillean archipelago, which it shares with the Dominican Republic. Ayiti was the indigenous Taíno or Amerindian name for the island...
ans in 1937. They also deal with the Dominican Republic's tense international relationships during the Cold War
Cold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
, especially with the United States under the presidency of John F. Kennedy
John F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy , often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963....
, and Cuba
Cuba
The Republic of Cuba is an island nation in the Caribbean. The nation of Cuba consists of the main island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the largest city in Cuba and the country's capital. Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city...
under Castro
Fidel Castro
Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz is a Cuban revolutionary and politician, having held the position of Prime Minister of Cuba from 1959 to 1976, and then President from 1976 to 2008. He also served as the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba from the party's foundation in 1961 until 2011...
. Vargas Llosa also speculates upon Trujillo's innermost thoughts and paints a picture of a man whose physical body is failing him. Trujillo is tormented by incontinence and impotence; and this storyline intersects with Urania's narrative when it is revealed that Urania was sexually assaulted by Trujillo. He is unable to achieve an erection with Urania, and in frustration and anger he rapes her with his hands. This event is the core of Urania's shame, and her hatred towards her father. In addition, it is the cause of Trujillo's repeated anger over the "anemic little bitch" that witnessed his impotence and emotion, and the reason he is en route to sleep with another girl on the night of his assassination.
In the novel's final chapters, the three storylines intersect with increasing frequency. The tone of these chapters is especially dark as they deal primarily with the horrific torture and death of the assassins at the hands of the SIM, the failure of the coup, the rape of Urania, and the concessions made to Trujillo's most vicious supporters allowing them to enact their horrific revenge on the conspirators and then escape the country. The book ends as Urania prepares to return home, determined this time to keep in touch with her family back on the island.
Modern day
Urania Cabral and her father Agustín Cabral appear in both the modern day and historical portions of the novel. In the year 1996, Urania returns to the Dominican Republic for the first time since her departure at the age of 14. She is a successful New York lawyer who has spent most of the past 35 years trying to overcome the traumas of her childhood, a goal she pursues through an academic fascination with Trujillo and Dominican history. Urania is deeply troubled by the events of her past, and is compelled to confront her father Agustín about his role in those events. Urania visits her father, finding him weakened by age and a severe stroke, so much so that he is barely able to respond physically to her presence, let alone speak. Agustín listens helplessly as Urania recounts his past as "Egghead Cabral", a high ranking member of Trujillo's inner circle, and his drastic fall from grace. Urania details Agustín's role in the events that led to her rape by the Dominican leader, and to her subsequent lifetime of celibacy and emotional trauma. Agustín's character in the modern day portion of the novel serves primarily as a sounding board for Urania's recollections of the Trujillo era and the events that surrounded both Agustín Cabral's disgrace and Urania's escape from the country. His responses are minimal and non-vocal, despite the ardency of Urania's accusations and the enormity of his own actions during Trujillo's reign.The Trujillo regime
Dominican Republic
The Dominican Republic is a nation on the island of La Hispaniola, part of the Greater Antilles archipelago in the Caribbean region. The western third of the island is occupied by the nation of Haiti, making Hispaniola one of two Caribbean islands that are shared by two countries...
from 1930 to 1961 and the official President of the Republic from 1930 to 1938 and 1943 to 1952. In The Feast of the Goat, Vargas Llosa imagines the innermost thoughts of the dictator, and retells The Goat's last hours from his own perspective.
Trujillo's character struggles with aging and the physical problems of incontinence and impotence. Through fictional events and first person narrative, the reader is given insight into the man who, during his "thirty-one years of horrendous political crimes", modernized the country's infrastructure and military, but whose regime's attacks against its enemies overseas (particularly the attempted assassination of Rómulo Betancourt
Rómulo Betancourt
Rómulo Ernesto Betancourt Bello , known as "The Father of Venezuelan Democracy", was President of Venezuela from 1945 to 1948 and again from 1959 to 1964, as well as leader of Accion Democratica, Venezuela's dominant political party in the 20th century...
, president of Venezuela
Venezuela
Venezuela , officially called the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela , is a tropical country on the northern coast of South America. It borders Colombia to the west, Guyana to the east, and Brazil to the south...
) led to the imposition of economic sanctions on the Dominican Republic by the Organization of American States
Organization of American States
The Organization of American States is a regional international organization, headquartered in Washington, D.C., United States...
in the 1950s. The resultant economic downturn, in conjunction with other factors, leads to the CIA supported assassination plot that ends Trujillo's life on May 30, 1961.
Trujillo's regime is supported by Johnny Abbes García
Johnny Abbes García
Johnny Abbes García was the chief of the governmental intelligence office during the Rafael Trujillo dictatorship in the Dominican Republic. A man of violence and a murderer, he ruled under Trujillo during the end of his era, and later served Duvalier in Haiti.-Rise to power:Abbes was born in 1924...
, the head of the Military Intelligence Service (SIM), a brutal man to whom many "disappearances, ... executions, ... sudden falls into disgrace" are attributed. García and his intelligence officers are notorious for their cruelty, particularly their habit of killing dissidents by throwing them into shark-infested waters. Colonel García "may be the devil, but he's useful to the Chief; everything bad is attributed to him and only the good to Trujillo". Trujillo's son, Ramfis Trujillo
Ramfis Trujillo
Lieutenant General Rafael Leonidas Trujillo Martínez , better known as Ramfis Trujillo, was the son of Rafael Leónidas Trujillo Molina and María Martínez...
, is a loyal supporter of the Chief. After unsuccessful attempts at schooling in the United States, Ramfis returns to the Dominican Republic to serve in his father's military. He is a well-known womanizer. Upon Trujillo's death, Ramfis seeks revenge, even going so far as to torture and kill his uncle by marriage, General Jose Roman, for his part in the assassination conspiracy.
Joaquín Balaguer
Joaquín Balaguer
Joaquín Antonio Balaguer Ricardo was the President of the Dominican Republic from 1960 to 1962, from 1966 to 1978, and again from 1986 to 1996.-Early life and introduction to politics:...
, Trujillo's puppet president is also a supporter, and initially his seemingly innocuous character holds no real power. Following Trujillo's death, the calm and serenity of Balaguer bring about real change in his character, and General Román comments that "this insignificant man whom everyone had always considered a mere clerk, a purely decorative figure in the regime, began to acquire surprising authority". It is Balaguer who guides much of the action in the last sections of the book.
Conspirators
The storyline concerning the assassination primarily follows the four conspirators who directly participate in Trujillo's death.Antonio Imbert Barrera
Antonio Imbert Barrera
Antonio Imbert Barrera was president of the Dominican Republic from May 7, 1965 until August 30, 1965. His predecessor in the post was Pedro Bartolomé Benoit; his successor, Héctor García Godoy. .His first important position was as governor of Puerto Plata in 1940...
is one of the few conspirators who survives the violent reprisals that follow Trujillo's assassination. Imbert is a politician who becomes disillusioned with the deception and cruelty of the Trujillo regime. His first plan to kill Trujillo was foiled by the unsuccessful attempted overthrow of the regime by Cuban paramilitary
Paramilitary
A paramilitary is a force whose function and organization are similar to those of a professional military, but which is not considered part of a state's formal armed forces....
forces. Now convinced of the difficulty of his task, Imbert joins the other conspirators in plotting Trujillo's death. Among the others is Antonio de la Maza, one of Trujillo's personal guards. Antonio's brother is killed as part of a government cover-up and Antonio swears revenge upon Trujillo. Salvador Estrella Sadhalá, known as "Turk", is a devout Catholic who, in indignation at the regime's many crimes against God, swears an oath against Trujillo. Turk eventually turns himself in for fear that the regime was torturing his family. Both Turk and his innocent brother are then tortured for months. His father remains loyal to Trujillo and disowns Turk to his face. Despite all of this, Turk refuses to commit suicide and does not lose faith in God. He is later executed by Ramfis and other high level government men. Turk's close friend, Amado García Guerrero
Amado Garcia Guerrero
Amado García Guerrero was one of the conspirators against, and killers of, Dominican Dictator Rafael Leonidas Trujillo Molina. He was a soldier in the Dominican Republic...
, known as Amadito, is a Lieutenant in the army who gave up his beloved as proof of his loyalty to Trujillo, and then later was forced to kill her brother to prove himself to Trujillo. Amadito's disgust with himself and disillusionment with the regime lead to his decision to help to kill Trujillo. Following the assassination he hides out with de la Maza and dies fighting. In the aftermath of the assassination, Amadito and Antonio de la Maza choose to fight the members of SIM who come to arrest them, opting to die in battle rather than be captured and tortured.
Major themes
The Feast of the Goats major themes include political corruption, machismo, memory, and writing and power. Olga Lorenzo, reviewer for The Melbourne Age, suggests that overall Vargas Llosa's aim is to reveal the irrational forces of Latin tradition that give rise to despotism.Political corruption
The structure of Dominican society was hierarchical, with strongly gendered rolesGender role
Gender roles refer to the set of social and behavioral norms that are considered to be socially appropriate for individuals of a specific sex in the context of a specific culture, which differ widely between cultures and over time...
. Rafael Trujillo, the ruler, was a cruel dictator
Dictator
A dictator is a ruler who assumes sole and absolute power but without hereditary ascension such as an absolute monarch. When other states call the head of state of a particular state a dictator, that state is called a dictatorship...
who haunts the people of Santo Domingo
Santo Domingo
Santo Domingo, known officially as Santo Domingo de Guzmán, is the capital and largest city in the Dominican Republic. Its metropolitan population was 2,084,852 in 2003, and estimated at 3,294,385 in 2010. The city is located on the Caribbean Sea, at the mouth of the Ozama River...
even 35 years after his death. He is a true caudillo
Caudillo
Caudillo is a Spanish word for "leader" and usually describes a political-military leader at the head of an authoritarian power. The term translates into English as leader or chief, or more pejoratively as warlord, dictator or strongman. Caudillo was the term used to refer to the charismatic...
, ruling with brutality and corruption. He creates a personality cult in his capitalist society and encourages decadence within his regime. Prior to promotion to a position of responsibility, an officer is required to pass a "test of loyalty". His people are to remain loyal to him all cost, and are periodically tested by public humiliation and censure even though acts of disloyalty were rare. Trujillo violates women and children as an expression of political and sexual power, and in some cases takes the wife or child of his lieutenants, many of whom still remain blindly loyal. Even the church and military institutions are employed to give women to the tyrant for pleasure.
Many of the assassins had belonged to the Trujillo regime or had at one point been its staunch supporters, only to find their support for him eroded by the state's crimes against its people. Imbert, one of the assassins, sums up this realization in a comment prompted by the murder of the Mirabal sisters
Mirabal sisters
The Mirabal sisters were four Dominican political dissidents who opposed the dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo. Three of the sisters were assassinated by unknown persons...
: "They kill our fathers, our brothers, our friends. And now they're killing our women. And here we sit, resigned, waiting our turn." In an interview, Vargas Llosa describes the corruption and brutality of Trujillo's regime: "He had more or less all the common traits of a Latin American dictator, but pushed to the extreme. In cruelty, I think he went far far away from the rest—and in corruption, too."
Machismo
According to literary scholar Peter Anthony Niessa, the two important components of machismoMachismo
Machismo, or machoism, is a word of Spanish and Portuguese origin that describes prominently exhibited or excessive masculinity. As an attitude, machismo ranges from a personal sense of virility to a more extreme male chauvinism...
are aggressive behaviour and hyper-sexuality. Aggressive behaviour is exhibited by displays of power and strength, while hyper-sexuality is revealed through sexual activity with as many partners as possible. These two components shape the portrayal of Trujillo and his regime in The Feast of the Goat. As Lorenzo observes, Vargas Llosa "reveals traditions of machismo, of abusive fathers, and of child-rearing practices that repeat the shaming of children, so that each generation bequeaths a withering of the soul to the subsequent one."
In a display of both aspects of machismo, Trujillo demanded of his aides and cabinet that they provide him with sexual access to their wives and daughters. Mario Vargas Llosa wrote of Trujillo's machismo and treatment of women, "[h]e went to bed with his ministers' wives, not only because he liked these ladies but because it was a way to test his ministers. He wanted to know if they were ready to accept this extreme humiliation. Mainly the ministers were prepared to play this grotesque role—and they remained loyal to Trujillo even after his death." Trujillo's sexual conquests and public humiliations of his enemies also serve to affirm his political power and machismo. In Niessa's words, "The implication is that maximum virility equals political dominance."
Trujillo's attempted sexual conquest of Urania is an example of both political manipulation of Agustín Cabral and sexual power over young women. However, as Trujillo's penis
Penis
The penis is a biological feature of male animals including both vertebrates and invertebrates...
remains flaccid throughout the encounter and he is humiliated in front of the young girl, the encounter fails to satisfy his requirements for machismo.
Memory
All of the novel's storylines concern memoryMemory
In psychology, memory is an organism's ability to store, retain, and recall information and experiences. Traditional studies of memory began in the fields of philosophy, including techniques of artificially enhancing memory....
in some sense or another. The most apparent confrontation of memory is on the part of Urania Cabral, who has returned to the Dominican Republic for the first time in 30 years, and is forced to confront her father and the traumas that led her to leave the country at 14. She was the victim of sexual abuse at the hands of the dictator himself, a sacrifice her father made to try to gain favor with the dictator again, a fact to which she alludes throughout the book, but which is only revealed at the very end: the book concludes with her recounting the memory of that night to her aunt and cousins, who never knew the true reason she left the country. When her aunt is surprised that she remembers all these details, she responds that while she forgets many things, "I remember everything about that night." For Urania, forgetting the atrocities committed by the regime is unacceptable. Her father, on the other hand, is not capable of joining her in this process of remembering, since he has suffered a stroke
Stroke
A stroke, previously known medically as a cerebrovascular accident , is the rapidly developing loss of brain function due to disturbance in the blood supply to the brain. This can be due to ischemia caused by blockage , or a hemorrhage...
and is not capable of speaking; however, Urania is angry that he chose to forget these things while he was still capable of acknowledging them.
Memory is also important in the sections of the novel that deal with the assassins. Each recalls the events that led him to take part in the assassination of Trujillo. These incidents included the 1956 Galindez kidnapping and murder, the 1960 murder of the Mirabal sisters
Mirabal sisters
The Mirabal sisters were four Dominican political dissidents who opposed the dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo. Three of the sisters were assassinated by unknown persons...
, and the 1961 split with the Catholic Church. These historical events are used by Vargas Llosa to connect the assassins with specific moments that demonstrate the violence of Trujillo's regime. Trujillo, too, is shown reflecting on the past, not least his own formation and training at the hands of the US Marines.
But above all Mario Vargas Llosa uses the fictional Urania to facilitate the novel's attempt at remembering the regime. The novel opens and closes with Urania's story, effectively framing the narrative in the terms of remembering the past and understanding its legacy in the present. In addition, because of her academic study of the history of the Trujillo regime, Urania is also confronting the memory of the regime for the country as a whole. This is in keeping with one purpose of the book, which is to ensure that the atrocities of the dictatorship and the dangers of absolute power will be remembered by a new generation.
Writing and power
In her treatment of the novel, María Regina Ruiz claims that power gives its wielder the ability to make prohibitions; prohibitions that are reflected in history, the study of which reveals what is and what is not told. The government's actions in The Feast of the Goat demonstrate the discourse of prohibition: foreign newspapers and magazines were prohibited from entering Trujillo's country as they were seen as a threat to the government's ideas. Mario Vargas Llosa takes part in this discourse by recounting what was prohibited.Ruiz notes that writing also has the power to transform reality. It brings the reader back to the past, allowing the reader to comprehend myths or distorted stories told by historians. Ruiz contends that knowing the past is crucial to one's understanding of the present that takes us to postmodernism
Postmodernism
Postmodernism is a philosophical movement evolved in reaction to modernism, the tendency in contemporary culture to accept only objective truth and to be inherently suspicious towards a global cultural narrative or meta-narrative. Postmodernist thought is an intentional departure from the...
, and argues that The Feast of the Goat can thus be seen as a postmodern discourse that gives power to history recreation.
The construction of fictions surrounding the events of Trujillo's regime allow a degree of freedom from the horrors that took places. Author Julia Alvarez contends that these events can "only finally be understood by fiction, only finally be redeemed by the imagination", while Richard Patterson claims that Vargas Llosa "reconfigures, and to a large degree demythologizes" Trujillo and his brutal reign through use of narrative structure
Narrative structure
Narrative structure is generally described as the structural framework that underlies the order and manner in which a narrative is presented to a reader, listener, or viewer....
. Vargas Llosa's writing acts as a cathartic force for this period in history.
Fact and fiction
The novel is a combination of fact and fiction. Blending together these two elements is important in any historical novelHistorical novel
According to Encyclopædia Britannica, a historical novel is-Development:An early example of historical prose fiction is Luó Guànzhōng's 14th century Romance of the Three Kingdoms, which covers one of the most important periods of Chinese history and left a lasting impact on Chinese culture.The...
, but especially in The Feast of the Goat because Vargas Llosa chose to narrate an actual event through the minds of both real and fictional characters. Some characters are fictional, and those that are non-fictional still have fictionalized aspects in the book. The general details of the assassination are true, and the assassins are all real people. While they lie in wait for the Dictator to arrive, they recount actual crimes of the regime, such as the murder of the Mirabal sisters. However, other details are invented by Vargas Llosa, such as Amadito's murder of the brother of the woman he loved.
Those within the regime are also a mix of fictional characters and real people. President Balaguer
Balaguer
Balaguer is the capital of the comarca of Noguera, in the province of Lleida, Catalonia, Spain.It is located by the river Segre, a tributary to the Ebre....
is real, but the entire Cabral family is completely fictional. According to Wolff, Vargas Llosa "uses history as a starting point in constructing a fictionalized account of Trujillo's "spiritual colonization" of the Dominican Republic as experienced by one Dominican family. The fictional Cabral family allows Vargas Llosa to show two sides of the Trujillo regime: through Agustin, the reader sees ultimate dedication and sacrifice to the leader of the nation; through Urania, the violence of the regime and the legacy of pain it left behind. Vargas Llosa also fictionalized the internal thoughts of the characters who were non-fictional, especially those of the Goat himself. According to literary scholar Richard Patterson, "Vargas Llosa's expands all the way into the very "dark area" of Trujillo's consciousness (as the storyteller dares to conceive it)."
Vargas Llosa also built an image of the regime with the troubled historical events. With regard to the historical accuracy of the book, Vargas Llosa has said "It's a novel, not a history book, so I took many, many liberties. The only limitation I imposed on myself was that I was not going to invent anything that couldn't have happened within the framework of life in the Dominican Republic. I have respected the basic facts, but I have changed and deformed many things in order to make the story more persuasive—and I have not exaggerated."
Critical reception
The realist style of The Feast of the Goat is recognized by some reviewers as being a break from a more allegorical approach to the dictator novelDictator novel
The dictator novel is a genre of Latin American literature that challenges the role of the dictator in Latin American society. The theme of caudillismo—the régime of a charismatic caudillo, a political strongman—is addressed by examining the relationships between power, dictatorship,...
. The novel received largely positive reviews, most of which were willing to accept sacrifices of historical accuracy in favour of good storytelling.
A common comment on the novel is the graphic nature of the many acts of torture and murder which are depicted in the novel. Vargas lets the reader see the realities of an oppressive regime with a degree of detail not often used by his compatriots in Latin American literature, as Michael Wood suggests in the London Review of Books
London Review of Books
The London Review of Books is a fortnightly British magazine of literary and intellectual essays.-History:The LRB was founded in 1979, during the year-long lock-out at The Times, by publisher A...
: "Vargas Llosa ... tells us far more about the details of day-to-day intrigue, and the sordid, sadistic minutiae of torture and murder." Walter Kirn of the New York Times suggests that the "grisly scenes of dungeon interrogations and torture sessions" cast other aspects of the novel in a pale light, draining them of their significance and impact. Similarly, Kirn implies that the "narrative machinery" mentioned by Wood as being somewhat unwieldy also produces a largely superfluous storyline. The plot line centered on Urania Cabral is described by Sturrock as being an emotional centre that focuses the novel, and Wood agrees that her confrontations with past demons hold the readers attention. In contrast, Kirn's review states that Urania's segments are "talky and atmospheric ... [and] seem to be on loan from another sort of book."
Most reviews of The Feast of the Goat make either indirect of direct reference to the relationship between sexuality and power. Salon
Salon.com
Salon.com, part of Salon Media Group , often just called Salon, is an online liberal magazine, with content updated each weekday. Salon was founded by David Talbot and launched on November 20, 1995. It was the internet's first online-only commercial publication. The magazine focuses on U.S...
reviewer Laura Miller, writer for The Observer
The Observer
The Observer is a British newspaper, published on Sundays. In the same place on the political spectrum as its daily sister paper The Guardian, which acquired it in 1993, it takes a liberal or social democratic line on most issues. It is the world's oldest Sunday newspaper.-Origins:The first issue,...
Jonathan Heawood, Walter Kirn, and Michael Wood each detail the connection between Trujillo's gradual loss of ultimate control, both over his body and his followers. The means by which Trujillo reinforces political power through sexual acts and begins to lose personal conviction as his body fails him are topics of frequent discussion among reviewers.
Adaptations
An English language film adaptation of the novel was made in 2005, directed by Luis LlosaLuis Llosa
Luis Llosa is a Peruvian film director. He is the cousin of the Peruvian novelist Mario Vargas Llosa.-Selected filmography:* Crime Zone * Sniper * Eight Hundred Leagues on the Amazon * Fire on the Amazon...
, Mario Vargas Llosa's cousin. It stars Isabella Rossellini
Isabella Rossellini
Isabella Fiorella Elettra Giovanna Rossellini is an Italian actress, filmmaker, author, philanthropist, and model. Rossellini is noted for her 14-year tenure as a Lancôme model, and for her roles in films such as Blue Velvet and Death Becomes Her.-Background and early life:Rossellini is a...
as Urania Cabral, Paul Freeman as her father Agustin, Stephanie Leonidas
Stephanie Leonidas
Stephanie Leonidas is an English actress of Greek Cypriot descent.- Early life and family :One of four children born to a Greek Cypriot father, Leonidas is not the only thespian in the family — her brother Dimitri Leonidas and sister Georgina Leonidas are also actors, whilst her older sister Helen...
as Uranita and Tomas Milian
Tomas Milian
Tomás Milián is a Cuban-American actor best known for having worked extensively in Italian films from the late 1950s to the 1980s.-Career in Italy:...
as Rafael Leonidas Trujillo. It was filmed in both the Dominican Republic and in Spain. Reviewing the film for the trade paper Variety, critic Jonathan Holland called it "less a feast than a somewhat rushed, but thoroughly enjoyable, three-course meal", commenting that the main difference from the source novel was the sacrifice of psychological nuance.
The novel has also been adapted for the stage
Theatrical adaptation
In a theatrical adaptation, material from another artistic medium, such as a novel or a film is re-written according to the needs and requirements of the theatre and turned into a play or musical....
, by Jorge Alí Triana and his daughter Veronica Triana, directed by Jorge Triana: the play was put on (in Spanish, but with simultaneous translation to English) at Repertorio Español (www.repertorio.org/chivo) in New York in 2003; and the production moved to Lima in 2007. A feature of the novel's stage version is that the same actor plays both Agustin Cabral and Rafael Trujillo. For reviewer Bruce Weber, this makes the point "that Trujillo's control of the nation depended on gutless collaborators".