The Feast of the GoatBy Mario Vargas Llosa

W IntroductionMario Vargas Llosa’s novel The Feast of the Goat (2000;English translation by Edith Grossman, 2001) is a multiface-ted novel about the individual and national trauma induced

by the dictatorship of Rafael Leónidas Trujillo in theDominican Republic. The narrative reflects on the Trujillodictatorship through three interwoven story lines. The first

belongs to Urania Cabral, a successful New York lawyer whofled the Dominican Republic at the age of fourteen andreturns to her native country in 1996, ostensibly to visit her

aged and ailing father, Agustin, who was once one ofTrujillo’s closest advisers. The second belongs to Trujillohimself, focusing largely on the last day of his life in 1961and giving the reader direct insight into the consciousness of

a corrupt but fascinating tyrant. The third story line followsthe actions and memories of several of Trujillo’s assassins,many of whom had once been loyal to the president and his

regime. As these distinct narrative threads finally intersect inthe last few chapters of the novel, they comment on theinsidious and far-reaching spiritual damage that is wrought

by a cult of personality such as Trujillo’s.

W Literary and HistoricalContext

General Rafael Trujillo, also known as “the Goat,” ruledthe Dominican Republic from 1930 until his assassinationon May 30, 1961. He officially led the country aspresident from 1930 to 1938 and from 1942 to 1952;while out of office, he controlled the Dominican Republicthrough various puppet presidents. Trujillo was oftencapricious, manipulating people to his own ends. His testsof loyalty, abusive quid pro quos, meant Trujillo coulddemand the completion of atrocities that would serve therepublic and his personal goals. Vargas Llosa’s portrait of

Trujillo shows a character deeply preoccupied with hisown image.

The Feast of the Goat belongs to a tradition of LatinAmerican dictator novels, including Augusto Roa Bastos’sI the Supreme (1974), Alejo Carpentier’s Reasons of theState (1974), and Gabriel García Márquez’s Autumn ofthe Patriarch (1976). However, Vargas Llosa’s novel is adeparture from magical realism, the style of LatinAmerican writers from the period known as the “Boom.”The Feast of the Goat differs in two significant ways. First,according to Michael Wood in the London Review ofBooks and Andrew Foley in the Journal of Literary Studies,Vargas Llosa’s research grounds the story in reality ratherthan a mythical abstraction. Bastos, Carpentier, andGarcía Márquez create pseudorealities for their despots,whereas Vargas Llosa achieves a gritty, inescapablerealism for his. Second, Vargas Llosa’s organizationsignifies the complex connection between ruler andruled. The Cabral father-daughter relationship dramatizesthe complicity of a tyrant’s subjects in supporting theregime. Also, the conspirators understand the heavy pricethey have paid in serving Trujillo. Vargas Llosa weavesthe memories and actions of historical and fictionalcharacters to portray oppression and betrayal.

W ThemesThe Feast of the Goat exhibits the tension betweennostalgia and trauma through the characters’ memories.The novel opens in 1996 with Urania returning to theDominican Republic after thirty-five years. She revisitsher memories of the city, her childhood, and the eventthat forced her departure. Over the course of a day shevisits her father, now incapacitated by a stroke, as well asher aunt and cousins. Every place Urania sees naturallyevokes memories. Some are pleasant; others have beensuppressed. She was victimized by Trujillo and, in aprofound betrayal, by her father. Through rememberingand confronting her past, the traumatic details are set in

431

front of the reader at the same time Urania is facing them.In another narrative thread, as the assassins anticipatetheir encounter with Trujillo, they privately rememberthe events that have brought them to this vengeful point.In this way, memory and motivation unite Urania’s story

to those of the assassins’. In connecting these charactersthematically, Vargas Llosa helps readers understand theextent to which Trujillo’s evil penetrated society.

Trujillo’s cult of personality determines his gover-nance. In this immoral regime, Agustin offers Trujillo hisfourteen-year-old daughter as appeasement. Agustin isthe victim of his own ambition, Urania is sacrificed, andTrujillo’s impotence is witnessed by Urania. Humiliated,he deflowers her with his fingers and berates her in histhoughts. Trujillo’s encounter with Urania is the crucibleof the action in the novel. During Trujillo’s reign hissupporters grew in power, but the costs becameintolerable. For Urania, confrontation with her pastassuages her psychological pain, while the assassinschoose murder as their revenge.

W StyleThe three interwoven story lines, delivered by anomniscient narrator, are an affecting and effective stylechoice. Because the focus alternates between first Urania,then Trujillo, and finally the assassin-conspirators, theindividuals become part of a horrific tableau by the closeof the novel. The tone of each strain is quite distinctive.The narrative voice is sometimes very close, mirroring

MAJOR CHARACTERS

JOAQUIN BALAGUER is Trujillo’s puppet president andsupporter. Balaguer appears as a dutiful cipher; followingTrujillo’s assassination, however, he fills the power vacuum.

ANTONIO IMBERT BARRERA is a disillusioned politician whobecomes angry at the hypocrisy and cruelty of the Trujilloregime. He joins other conspirators in plotting the Goat’sdeath.

AGUSTIN CABRAL is General Trujillo’s former secretary of stateand part of the regime’s inner circle. He is complicit in theatrocities at the hands of the country’s leader that arerevealed in the story.

URANIA CABRAL is the daughter of Agustin. Her family’sexperiences illustrate historical events of the Trujillogovernment and its demise. Over the course of a day, herlong-held secret and reason for self-exile is revealed.

COLONEL JOHNNY ABBES GARCIA is head of ServicioInteligencia Militar (SIM), the Dominican Republic’sintelligence service. He is a brutal and ruthless man,“an arch-demon of great refinement,” according to Kirn.As Trujillo’s enforcer, he does the dirty work.

AMADO GARCIA GUERRERO, or Amadito, is a disillusionedarmy lieutenant. To prove his loyalty, he gave up hisbeloved and later was forced to kill her brother. FollowingTrujillo’s assassination, he and Maza fight the SIMmembers who come to arrest them.

ANTONIO DE LA MAZA is one of Trujillo’s bodyguards.Because his brother is killed in a government cover-up, hevows revenge. He elects death rather than capture andtorture after Trujillo’s assassination.

GENERAL JOSE ROMAN, nicknamed Pupo, is a conspirator andvengeful former Trujillo supporter. He agrees to form aprovisional government as soon as he is shown Trujillo’scorpse. When that actually happens, however, Romanfreezes in apparent impotence.

GENERAL RAFAEL TRUJILLO, known as the Goat, the Chief,and the Benefactor, is based on the historical dictator ofthe Dominican Republic from 1930 to 1961. The noveldepicts Trujillo’s political and personal life on his last day.

RAMFIS TRUJILLO, the general’s son, is a well-known playboy.Although a disappointment to Trujillo, he serves in themilitary. He is also prominent in the vengeance-ridden post-assassination developments.

The central figure of The Feast of the Goat, Dominican Republicpresident Rafael Trujillo speaks to his countrymen aboutcommunism. ª Hulton-Deutsch Collection/Corbis

432 TWENTY-F IRST CENTURY NOVELS : THE F IRST DECADE

The Feast of the Goat

the individual at hand, or is set at a measured distance,allowing a sort of cinematic long shot. One of theprominent overall effects is an understanding of how eachindividual’s story is also an important part of the overallstory of the Dominican Republic.

As Laura Miller notes in Salon, Vargas Llosa’sstructure of two time frames and three distinct narrativefacets is “set up to deliver gobs of exposition.” Theintrospection of the characters offers a sort of intimacythat is at times compelling (in Urania’s case) and at othertimes repulsive (in Trujillo’s case, as when he tortures andabuses people). This is also where the author’s mix ofresearched historical detail combined with his imaginativegenius accumulates both weight and significance as thestory reaches its final scenes. The assassination of Trujillocomes roughly midway through the novel, but VargasLlosa reinforces the continuance of the dictator’s influ-ence by repeatedly shifting back to scenes of the livingTrujillo.

W Critical ReceptionReviewers of The Feast of the Goat have been impressed byVargas Llosa’s research of the atrocities attributed to

Trujillo’s military. Most see Vargas Llosa’s narrativechoices as adeptly accomplished and praise his imagina-tive ventures into the thoughts of Urania, Trujillo, andthe conspirators. Alan Cheuse of SFGate considers him a

This photograph shows the car in which Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo, the subject of The Feast of the Goat, was assassinated.ª Bettmann/Corbis

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Mario Vargas Llosa, born in Peru on March 28, 1936, is aprolific novelist, journalist, social critic, and political activist. Allof Latin America took notice when his groundbreaking novelThe Time of the Hero was published in 1963. The book won theSpanish Critics Award and the rage of Peru’s military. He soonrose to prominence during the Latin American “Boom.” VargasLlosa’s many novels vary in tone, narrative style, and theme.They include The Green House (1965), Aunt Julia and theScriptwriter (1982), The War at the End of the World (1985),and Death in the Andes (1996). In 1990 Vargas Llosa ran forthe presidency in Peru but lost to Alberto Fujimori. Disheart-ened by Fujimori’s harsh rule, he moved to Spain. He also hashomes in London and in Lima, Peru. Vargas Llosa won the 2010Nobel Prize in Literature.

TWENTY-F IRST CENTURY NOVELS : THE F IRST DECADE 433

The Feast of the Goat

“master of the intricate and complex relation of the farpast to the near past and immediate present.”

Reviewers seem united in their responses to theheinous nature of Trujillo’s brutality and authoritarian-ism. Laura Miller, in Salon, writes, “Never has a noveldrawn the malignant political potential of crude, unfet-tered masculinity more ferociously.” Critics also noteTrujillo’s physical weaknesses—incontinence and impo-tence—suggesting these private embarrassments are theunderpinnings of the dictator’s more public humiliationof others.

Most critics agree that Vargas Llosa maintains firmstylistic control. Michael Wood writes in the LondonReview of Books that the “individual stories do build up asatisfyingly intricate picture.” Also, as the novel “arrives atits truly mesmerizing pages . . . it’s no longer quite adictator novel . . . but it is an intensely intelligent politicalnovel.” The only one of the inner circle who escapes isPresident Balaguer, Trujillo’s puppet. Walter Kirn, in theNew York Times, labels Balaguer an “unlikely savior” whoundergoes “a transformation of dazzling subtlety that hasto be read twice to be appreciated.”

Kirn describes Edith Grossman’s translation as“crackling” and energized, whereas in Miller’s view theprose is “clunky” at times, a weakness that is not helpedby Grossman’s “wooden and often inept” translation.Reviewers agree that Vargas Llosa has written animportant novel, which can also be read, as Olga Lorenzoof the Age does, as a comment on the “irrational forces ofdictatorship that can be understood.”

B I B L I O G R A P H Y

Works Cited

Cheuse, Alan. “Power Mad: Mario Vargas Llosa’s NewNovel Serves Up the Horrors of Rafael Trujillo’sReign in the Dominican Republic.” Rev. of The Feastof the Goat, by Mario Vargas Llosa. SFGate. HearstCommunications, 25 Nov. 2001. Web. 10 Oct.2010.

Foley, Andrew. “Power, Myth and Freedom.” Rev. ofThe Feast of the Goat, by Mario Vargas Llosa. Journalof Literary Studies 24.1 (2008): 1. Literature ResourceCenter. Web. 6 Oct. 2010.

Jaggi, Maya. “Fiction and Hyper-reality.” Guardian[London]. Guardian News and Media Ltd, 16 Mar.2002. Web. 7 Oct. 2010.

Kirn, Walter. “Generalissimo.” New York Times. NewYork Times, 25 Nov. 2002. Web. 6 Oct. 2010.

Lorenzo, Olga. “Dissection of a Despot.” Age[Melbourne]. Fairfax Media, 15 July 2002. Web.6 Oct. 2010.

Menton, Seymour. Rev. of The Feast of the Goat, byMario Vargas Llosa. World Literature Today 74.3(2000): 676. General Onefile. Web. 8 Oct. 2010.

Miller, Laura. Rev. of The Feast of the Goat, by MarioVargas Llosa. Salon.com 6 Dec. 2002. Web. 6 Oct.2010.

Wood, Michael. “Memories of a Skinny Girl.” LondonReview of Books. LRB Limited, 9 May 2002. Web.6 Oct. 2010.

Additional Resources

Criticism and Reviews

Bell-Villada, Gene H. “Thirty-One Years of Solitude.”Commonweal 128.19 (2001): 20-21. Rpt. in Con-temporary Literary Criticism. Ed. Janet Witalec. Vol.181. Detroit: Gale, 2004. Literature Resource Center.Web. 11 Oct. 2010. Bell-Villada asserts that The Feastof the Goat “will most surely become THE bookabout the long Trujillo nightmare and the ongoing,sordid aftermath.”

Hensher, Philip. “The Feast of the Goat. (Books:Anatomy of a Tyrant).” Rev. of The Feast of the Goat,by Mario Vargas Llosa. Spectator 30 Mar. 2002: 38+.Literature Resource Center. Web. 11 Oct. 2010.Situates The Feast of the Goat well outside the popularidea of the Latin American novel, noting its strengths,obsessions, and direction.

Howard, Gregory. Rev. of The Feast of the Goat, by MarioVargas Llosa. Review of Contemporary Fiction 22.1(2002): 120-21. Rpt. in Contemporary LiteraryCriticism. Ed. Janet Witalec. Vol. 181. Detroit: Gale,2004. Literature Resource Center. Web. 11 Oct.2010. Howard describes The Feast of the Goat as “avisceral lesson in the complex synergy of politicalintrigue, sex, machismo, and history.”

Johnson-Wright, Heidi. “January Interview with MarioVargas Llosa.” January Magazine Jan. 2002. Web.10 Oct. 2010. An interview with Vargas Llosa thatcontains commentary on his most recent work and hiscreative process.

Kakutani, Michiko. “Storyteller Enthralled by the Powerof Art.” New York Times. New York Times, 7 Oct.2010. Web. 10 Oct. 2010. Offers a succinct overviewand commentary on Vargas Llosa’s work and itslegacy.

Schwartz, Lynne Sharon. “Sensationalism andSensibility.” New Leader 84.6 (2001): 30-31. Rpt. inContemporary Literary Criticism. Ed. Janet Witalec.Vol. 181. Detroit: Gale, 2004. Literature ResourceCenter. Web. 11 Oct. 2010. Takes issue with “theunalloyed cruelty” detailed in The Feast of the Goat as“neither complex nor interesting, and lingering on itsdetails yields easily to sensationalism.”

Shakespeare, Sebastian. Rev. of The Feast of the Goat, byMario Vargas Llosa. New Statesman 131.4554(2002): 57. Rpt. in Contemporary Literary Criticism.Ed. Janet Witalec. Vol. 181. Detroit: Gale, 2004.

434 TWENTY-F IRST CENTURY NOVELS : THE F IRST DECADE

The Feast of the Goat

Literature Resource Center. Web. 8 Oct. 2010.Provides a mixed assessment of The Feast of the Goat,noting that “even if this is not a great novel, VargasLlosa is still a great storyteller.”

Torch, Rafael. Rev. of The Feast of the Goat, by MarioVargas Llosa. Antioch Review 60.2 (2002): 342-43.Rpt. in Contemporary Literary Criticism. Ed. JanetWitalec. Vol. 181. Detroit: Gale, 2004. LiteratureResource Center. Web. 11 Oct. 2010. Asserts that TheFeast of the Goat is “full of the tremendous power ofthe Latin American epic, and Vargas Llosa once againdelivers a sweeping statement about the turbulenthistory of Latin America.”

Gale Resources

“Edith Marian Grossman.” Contemporary AuthorsOnline. Detroit: Gale, 2003. Literature ResourceCenter. Web. 6 Oct. 2010.

“Mario Vargas Llosa.” Contemporary Authors Online.Detroit: Gale, 2008. Literature Resource Center.Web. 8 Oct. 2010.

“Mario Vargas Llosa.” Literature Resource Center.Detroit: Gale, 2010. Web. 8 Oct 2010.

Open Web Sources

Vargas Llosa’s official Web site offers information on hisnovels and other publications, news links, and a shortbiography. http://www.mariovargasllosabooks.com/

The official site of the Nobel Prize committee featuresinformation on all laureates, including Vargas Llosa.http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/2010/

The Complete Review holds a collection of reviews of TheFeast of the Goat and links to the original publications.http://www.complete-review.com/reviews/vargas/fiestac.htm

The Historical Text Archive offers a good overview of thepolitical history of the Dominican Republic and theoften unpleasant involvement of the United States.http://historicaltextarchive.com/sections.php?op=viewarticle&artid=362

Oberlin College & Conservatory’s Web site presentssources and general resources on Latin America.http://www.oberlin.edu/faculty/svolk/latinam.htm

For Further Reading

Alvarez, Julia. In the Time of the Butterflies. New York:Plume, 1994. Print. Three of the four Mirabal sisterswere murdered by Trujillo’s henchmen in November1960 for their involvement in efforts to topple theTrujillo regime. Alvarez’s fictionalization of theirstory won the National Book Critics Circle Award in1994.

Chaddick, Larissa, and Luis Rebasa-Soraluz. “Demonsand Lies: Motivation and Form in Mario VargasLlosa.” Review of Contemporary Fiction Spring 1997:15. Literature Resource Center. Web. 10 Oct. 2010.In this interview, Mario Vargas Llosa discusses hisstyle and purposes in his fiction and recent nonfiction.He also responds to questions regarding the impor-tance of the novel as a genre and touches directly onthe writing of Gustave Flaubert, Victor Hugo, GarcíaMárquez, and Franz Kafka.

Chang, Jorge Villanueva, and Jimena Pinilla Cisneros.“An Interview with Mario Vargas Llosa.” WorldLiterature Today 76.1 (2002): 64(6). GeneralOneFile. Web. 6 Oct. 2010. This interview featuresVargas Llosa’s comments on the resiliency of thenovel form, how technology will affect publishingbooks, and the contributions of several seminalwriters such as Jorge Luis Borges, William Faulkner,Marcel Proust, and Kafka.

Furtis, Richard Lee. Foundations of Despotism: Peasants,the Trujillo Regime, and Modern Dominican History.Stanford: Stanford UP, 2003. Print. This nonfictionwork looks beyond the Trujillo cult of personality andthe oppressive state apparatus to find the basis for thepolitical legitimacy of the Trujillo regime.

García Márquez, Gabriel. Autumn of the Patriarch. NewYork: Harper, 1976. Print. Both a novel of the LatinAmerican literature period known as the “Boom” andone of the premier dictator novels, García Márquez’sbook is quite different in style but similar in topic toThe Feast of the Goat.

Lopez-Calvo, Ignacio. God and Trujillo: Literal andCultural Representations of the Dominican Dictator.Gainesville: UP of Florida, 2005. Print. This nonfic-tion volume focuses on the personal and public life ofthe dictator, as well as his known and probablepsychological traits, and traces the history of Spanish-American dictators in general and Trujillo in partic-ular.

Robinson, Nancy P. “Origins of the International Day forthe Elimination of Violence against Women: TheCaribbean Contribution.” Caribbean Studies 34.2(2006): 141+. Academic OneFile. Web. 8 Oct. 2010.Robinson traces the development of the internationalhuman framework for women’s rights and exploresthe origins of the International Day for the Elimina-tion of Violence against Women in the LatinAmerican context, through the life stories of theMirabal sisters in the Dominican Republic.

Adaptations

The Feast of the Goat. Dir. Luis Llosa. Perf. IsabellaRossellini, Paul Freeman, Stephanie Leonidas, TomasMilian. Future Film Group, 2005. Film. Director LuisLlosa, an accomplished filmmaker and the novelist’s

TWENTY-F IRST CENTURY NOVELS : THE F IRST DECADE 435

The Feast of the Goat

brother-in-law, trims the triple focus of the originalwork to two dovetailed stories—those of Urania andthe conspiracy to kill Trujillo. True to the novel is thecreation of the atmosphere of terror, sycophancy, andsavagery that pervaded Dominican society for morethan three decades.

The Feast of the Goat. Adapt. and dir. Jorge Triana.Repertorio Español. 2003 and 2007. Performance.New York City’s Repertorio Español’s stage

adaptation of The Feast of the Goat is a criticallyacclaimed presentation by the father-daughter teamof Jorge and Victoriana Triana. In 2007 the produc-tion moved to Lima, Peru, also to great acclaim.A prominent feature of the stage production is thatthe same actor who portrays Agustin Cabral alsoplays the dictator Trujillo.

Marta Lauritsen

436 TWENTY-F IRST CENTURY NOVELS : THE F IRST DECADE

The Feast of the Goat