The Feast of the Goat

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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. [4] 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. [4] 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". [5] 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 Haitians 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 slowly failing him. Trujillo is tormented by both his incontinence and impotence. Eventually, his storyline intersects with Urania's narrative when it's revealed that Urania was sexually assaulted by Trujillo. He is unable to achieve an erection with Urania and, in frustration, rapes her with his bare hands. This event is the core of Urania's shame and hatred towards her own father. In addition, it's the cause of Trujillo's repeated anger over the "anemic little bitch" [10] who witnessed his impotence and emotion, as well as the reason he's en route to sleep with another girl on the night of his assassination. 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 World). It is also unusual because it's 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". [3] Weber, Bruce (March 11, 2003), "Theater Review. Severity of a Tyrant's Tale, from Vargas Llosa", The New York Times , retrieved 2008-03-26 . Tenenbaum, Barbara A. (1996), Encyclopedia of Latin American History and Culture, Scribner, ISBN 978-0-684-19253-6 .

The novel is a combination of fact and fiction. Blending together these two elements is important in any historical novel, 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. [42] 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. [41] 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. [24] However, other details are invented by Vargas Llosa, such as Amadito's murder of the brother of the woman he loved. [24] Vargas Llosa has characterised himself as a ‘novelist intoxicated by reality, fascinated by the history being forged around us and by the past which still weighs so heavily upon the present’. This is an instructive description of the author of The Feast of the Goat (La fiesta del Chivo, 2000), a realist novel depicting historical events: the assassination in 1961 of the dictator Rafael Leónidas Trujillo Molina and the legacy of his regime, which was still very evident in the Dominican Republic in the 1990s,when some of its scenes are set. H)is Trujillo is not some Rabelesian monster, some demi-god of brutality sprung fully-blown from the Latin American psyche, but a human grown monstrous with the accumulation of power and its brutal applications. It is in this critical difference that Vargas Llosa's psychological astuteness reveals itself – as well as in the depiction of how terror, once unleashed, slithers through the body politic gradually to eviscerate all its members." - Lisa Appignanesi, The Independent The facts, perhaps, almost preclude it: even among Latin America's notoriously bad leaders Trujillo ranks among the worst.

Summary

Ocr tesseract 5.0.0-alpha-20201231-10-g1236 Ocr_detected_lang en Ocr_detected_lang_conf 1.0000 Ocr_detected_script Latin Ocr_detected_script_conf 0.9825 Ocr_module_version 0.0.13 Ocr_parameters -l eng Old_pallet IA-NS-2000318 Openlibrary_edition According to literary scholar Peter Anthony Neissa, the two important components of machismo are aggressive behaviour and hyper-sexuality. [27] Aggressive behaviour is exhibited by displays of power and strength, while hyper-sexuality is revealed through sexual activity with as many partners as possible. [28] 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." [20]

Vargas Llosa] is one of our greatest and most influential novelists. His new novel confirms his importance. In the world of fiction his continued exploration of the often-perilous intersection of politics and life has enriched 20th century literature...In The Feast of the Goat, Vargas Llosa paints a portrait that is darkly comic, poignant, admirable and horrifying all at once.” — Los Angeles Times Or many in the many countries of the contemporary world living under regimes that are an affront to humanity. A fierce, edgy and enthralling book...Mr. Vargas Llosa has pushed the boundaries of the traditional historical novel, and in doing so has written a book of harrowing power and lasting resonance.” — The New York TimesWhat disturbed me the most about the movie is that I got the feeling that if Puerto Rico were not under the territorial clause of the United States Constitution, it could easily be ruled today by a dictator like Rafael Trujillo, Batista or any of the other Latin American dictators. The only Spanish-language republic in South and Latin America, which never had a dictatorship, is Costa Rica. The Feast of the Goat's 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. [20] Political corruption [ edit ] At last, Luis Llosa, our "international" Peruvian director, after making movies such as "Anaconda", has made a good movie. La Fiesta del Chivo (or "The Feast of the Goat") is a very good movie based on Mario Vargas Llosa's novel of the same title: it's powerful, emotive, and of high caliber.

Vargas Llosa also allows the reader to peek into the mind of the Generalissimo himself. Through the inner thoughts of Trujillo, now seventy years old, incontinent, impotent, yet still revered and feared, we learn how devious and evil the man truly was. urn:lcp:feastofgoat00varg:epub:1f985c47-4c1a-4e22-854f-8edc9f5a4a8e Extramarc Columbia University Libraries Foldoutcount 0 Identifier feastofgoat00varg Identifier-ark ark:/13960/t7sn15r35 Isbn 0374154767 Patterson, Richard (2006), "Resurrecting Rafael: Fictional Incarnations of a Dominican Dictator", Callaloo, 29 (1): 223–237, doi: 10.1353/cal.2006.0061, S2CID 161495108 . (Subscription to Project MUSE required.)The Chessmaster: Joaquín Balaguer. The man started as a puppet of Trujillo, with no power whatsoever. After his murder, he calmly keeps things moving while he makes strong allies to avoid a possible coup. After a while, he effectively becomes the president, gaining admiration from other world leaders and expelling Trujillo’s family from the island to keep them away. In Real Life, he actually became president two more times, the third when he was over 90 and completely blind; not to mention that he ended becoming a dictator very much like Trujillo before him. Oh, and he was also aware of the assassination plot. There are many striking episodes and occurrences, some well-presented characters (Trujillo, in particular), some very well done scenes. No Celebrities Were Harmed: Henry Chirinos is a thinly veiled reference to Enrique Chirinos Soto, a Peruvian Sleazy Politician that went through several parties and even abandoned Vargas Llosa's movement to join Fujimorism. Urania's story frames the book: the novel begins with her arrival in Santo Domingo (which was still Ciudad Trujillo when she left), and ends with her departure. It has been suggested that this is the best novel of the 20th century. While that clearly is a massive exaggeration – it is not even Vargas Llosa’s best novel – it certainly shows a clear return to form and is a first-rate novel about a vicious dictator and what goes on in such dictatorships. Publishing history