The Feast of the Goat

“Animated chaos, the profound need in what was once your people, Urania, to stupefy themselves into not thinking and, perhaps, not even feeling. An explosion of savage life, immune to the tide of modernization. Something in Dominicans clings to this pre-rational, magical form: this appetite for noise.” 

Urania equates passion and exuberance with primitiveness, although the novel does not necessarily reach the same conclusion. Though Balaguer’s coolness ultimately proves useful, the conspiracy and assassination would not have taken place without passion and anger. 

“Anxiously he inspected the sheets: the ugly grayish stain befouled the whiteness of the linen. It had leaked out, again. Indignation erased the unpleasant memory of Mahogany House. […] This wasn’t an enemy he could defeat like the hundreds, the thousands he had confronted and conquered over the years, buying them, intimidating them, killing them. This lived inside him, flesh of his flesh, blood of his blood. It was destroying him at precisely the time he needed to be stronger and healthier than ever.”

As a man of action, Trujillo forces whatever he wants on people. He speaks elsewhere of diplomacy and strategy, but for him, those are only stopgaps; when he doesn’t get his way, he eventually turns to force. No amount of force can reverse his own body’s betrayal, made all the more frustrating as it suggests a loss of manhood. It’s an internal enemy that symbolizes the enemies in his own inner circle that plot to bring him down.

“Starting on the first day, the De la Mazas viewed with suspicion and antipathy the intrigues employed by [Trujillo] at the head of the National Police […] When [Trujillo took power], the De la Mazas did what patrician families and regional caudillos traditionally did when they didn’t like the government: they took to the mountains with men armed and financed out of their own pockets.” 

It’s easy to view the De la Mazas as heroic outsiders who fought against Trujillo, but they represent the Dominican people no more than Trujillo does. They are aristocrats, part of an ongoing system that perpetuates violence, and those who have resources to fund violence get an outsized say in the country’s direction.

“It was something more subtle and indefinable than fear: It was the paralysis, the numbing of determination, reason, and free will, which [Trujillo], groomed and adorned to the point of absurdity, with his thin high-pitched voice and hypnotist’s eyes, imposed on Dominicans, poor or rich, educated or ignorant, friends or enemies, and it was what held Antonio [de la Maza] there, mute, passive, listening to those lies, the lone observer of the hoax, incapable of acting on his desire to attack him and put an end to the witches’ Sabbath that the history of the country had become.” 

A recurring question throughout the novel, for Urania and often for the reader, is how one man could consolidate this much power. Vargas Llosa suggests that people like Trujillo tap into something otherworldly. Elsewhere, Trujillo claims that he admires Hitler, who had a similar hypnotic effect on his followers. As Hitler, of partial Jewish lineage, villainized the Jewish people and cast them as enemies of Germany, Trujillo, himself of Haitian descent, distracted people from the indignities of his regime by casting Haitians as their enemy.

“He had killed [Antonio de la Maza] in stages, taking away his decency, his honor, his self-respect, his joy in living, his hopes and desires, turning him into a sack of bones tormented by the guilty conscience that had been destroying him gradually for so many years.”

Rather than use blunt force in every instance, Trujillo unravels some minds over time. Antonio de la Maza felt emptied out piece by piece, yet he only turned against Trujillo after his brother Tavito’s murder. Opponents can be dismantled over time, but the opposite is also true: Their will to fight can build gradually until it becomes undeniable. 

“‘There was crime, Papa.’ [Urania] looks into the invalid’s eyes, and he begins to blink. ‘Maybe there weren’t so many thieves breaking into houses, or so many muggers on the streets grabbing wallets, watches, and necklaces. But people were killed and beaten and tortured, people disappeared. Even the people closest to the regime.’” 

Urania counters one of the persistent, erroneous myths of strongmen: the idea that dictators provide safety in exchange for taking liberty. As Urania points out, crime persisted, but its form shifted to something state sponsored and repressive rather than more common street crime. 

“[Ramfis Trujillo] had been a monster like everyone else in that family of monsters. What else could he have been, being his father’s son, brought up and educated as he was? What else could the son of Heliogabalus, or Caligula, or Nero have been?”

Urania saw Ramfis as the only sort of son a man like Trujillo would have, arguing that the children of monsters will become monsters themselves, although she rejects her father’s beliefs and ambitions and forges her own path. Still, her statement suggests the difficulty of breaking the cycle of abuse and violence within families. She disciplines herself physically and emotionally, and behaves morally, but cannot let down her guard and form relationships.  

“[Henry Chirinos] had also composed the most important institutional and ordinary laws, and written almost all the legal decisions adopted by the Congress to legitimize the needs of the regime. There was no one like him for giving, in parliamentary speeches filled with Latin phrases and quotations that were often in French, the appearance of juridical necessity to the most arbitrary decisions of the Executive, or for refuting, with devastating logic, every proposal that Trujillo disapproved of.” 

George Orwell wrote an essay titled “Politics and the English Language” which argued, in part, that language is often used to hide political and moral monstrousness, suggesting that plain language is both better for writing as well as more ethical due to its transparency. This is a simplification, of course—plenty of monstrous deeds have been supported successfully using plain language—but Chirinos represents Orwell’s larger point by working rhetorical wonders to justify whatever Trujillo wishes.

“[Antonio Imbert] couldn’t remember how it began, the first doubts, conjectures, discrepancies that led him to wonder if everything really was going so well, or if, behind the façade of a country that under the severe but inspired leadership of an extraordinary statesman was moving ahead at a quickstep, lay a grim spectacle of people destroyed, mistreated, and deceived, the enthronement, through propaganda and violence, of a monstrous lie.”

Imbert cannot pinpoint the moment he turned against Trujillo; it was a slow and gradual, but unmistakable, turn. Many eventual conspirators came to their realizations not due to a single, significant event, but over time, as they grew disillusioned and less willing to go along with the lie. 

“But what [Turk] said about free will affected [Imbert]. Perhaps this was why he decided that Trujillo had to die. So that he and other Dominicans could recover their ability to at least accept or reject the work they did to earn a living. Tony did not know what that was like. Perhaps as a child he knew, but he had forgotten. It must be nice. Your cup of coffee or glass of rum must taste better […] everything must leave a more pleasurable sensation in your body and spirit when you had what Trujillo had taken away from Dominicans 31 years ago: free will.” 

Imbert loses his faith over time as he feels more and more restricted. He has lost control over the most basic choices and has lost the privilege of clear thought that so many in free societies take for granted.

“Her six years in Adrian allowed her to survive, something she thought she would never be able to do. Which is why she was still profoundly grateful to the Dominican sisters. And yet Adrian, in her memory, was a somnambulistic, uncertain time, the only concrete thing the infinite hours in the library, when she worked to keep from thinking. Cambridge, Massachusetts, was different. There she began to live again, to discover that life was worth living, that studying was not only therapy but a joy, the most glorious of diversions.” 

Urania’s time in Adrian, Michigan, was a time of recovery that allowed her to ground herself in intellectual passions at Harvard. It’s interesting that her object of attention becomes, first, the law, followed by Dominican history, which is intimately connected to her own history.

“‘I wish he had served Trujillo out of self-interest, to steal or have power,’ Urania says, and again she sees perplexity and displeasure in Lucinda’s eyes. ‘Anything, rather than seeing him whimper because Trujillo wouldn’t grant him an audience, because letters appeared in The Public Forum insulting him.’” 

Lucinda believes Agustín’s faith in Trujillo absolves him of sins he committed to stay close to the dictator. Urania takes the opposite view: She looks with contempt on her father’s obsequiousness, feeling that she would hold him in higher esteem if he’d cynically followed Trujillo in the pursuit of wealth or power, rather than being a true believer.  

“Would she have been happy if, applying her will, her discipline, she had eventually overcome the unconquerable revulsion and disgust caused by men who desired her? You could have gone into therapy, seen a psychologist, an analyst. They had a remedy for everything, even finding men repugnant. But you never wanted to be cured. On the contrary, you don’t consider it a disease but a character trait, like your intelligence, your solitude, your passion for doing good work.” 

Following her rape by Trujillo, Urania avoids male companionship and physical relationships. She tells herself this avoidance is simply a character trait that doesn’t require repair, but her feelings of revulsion and disgust toward men’s desire suggests she is not as indifferent to men as she appears.

“[Agustín] walked the four blocks slowly; the domains of Johnny Abbes were probably the only important places in the regime he had never visited, until now. The Beetle full of caliés followed him openly, in slow motion, right next to the sidewalk […] He recalled that when he was on the Budget Committee in Congress, he argued in favor of the appropriation to import the hundred Beetles in which Johnny Abbes’s caliés now cruised the entire country looking for enemies of the regime.” 

The people involved with Trujillo’s repressive government—at least, the ones willingly involved—generally seem to assume that the bad things only happen to others who “deserve” it, not those who are loyal (e.g., Tavito de la Maza). Yet when Trujillo decides to test Agustín’s loyalty, he finds himself outside the inner circle, with no inkling as to what he may have done to upset His Excellency, and no clue how to return to favor, monitored by the very vehicles he brought into the country in his exercise of congressional power.

“I’ve always had a low opinion of intellectuals and writers […] On the scale of merit, the military occupy first place. They do their duty, they don’t get involved in intrigues, they don’t waste time. Then the campesinos. In the bateyes and huts, on the sugar plantations, that’s where the healthy, hardworking honorable people of this country are. Then the bureaucrats, entrepreneurs, businessmen. Writers and intellectuals come last. Even below the priests.” 

The tension between brute strength and intellect forms one of the novel’s central conflicts. Trujillo values brawn over brains, preferring supposed men of action to men of thought. Though he prioritizes the former, he employs numerous men of intellect like Agustín and Chirinos in his government because he needs them. He reminds them of their place by calling them derogatory names, and he withholds trust from intellectuals like Modesto, whom he cannot control.

“Religion gave [Balaguer] spiritual order, an ethical system with which to confront life. At times he doubted transcendence, he doubted God, but never the irreplaceable function of Catholicism as an instrument for the social restraint of the human animal’s irrational passions and appetites. And, in the Dominican Republic, as a constituent force for nationhood, equal to the Spanish language. Without the Catholic faith, the country would fall into chaos and barbarism.” 

Vargas Llosa examines the place of institutions in society and question whether they are useful or always subject to abuse of power. Balaguer sees an institution’s power as rooted in its ethics and philosophies, and believes that social order built on ethics trumps order built on power and fear. Just as Trujillo finds discipline in physical self-control, Balaguer disciplines his mind by following the precepts of the Catholic faith.

“You, President Balaguer, have the good fortune to be concerned only with the best part of politics […] Laws, reforms, diplomatic negotiations, social transformations. […] But governing has a dirty side, and without it what you do would be impossible. What about order? Stability? Security? I’ve tried to keep you away from unpleasant things. But don’t tell me you don’t know how peace is achieved. With how much sacrifice and how much blood.” 

Trujillo, like many strongmen, believes his worldview is unassailable. Although Trujillo suggests that blood allows for laws and reform, Trujillo’s version of rule of law is anything but equitable, and he doesn’t see their irony of viewing peace as the end result of bloody repression. 

“Because I’m being asked to make a sacrifice, my dear. […] I want you to know something. I would never do anything, anything, you must understand, really understand, that wasn’t for your own good.” 

Agustín justifies his betrayal of Urania by telling himself that regaining his own good standing ultimately benefits her. He plays down the monstrousness of his act by thinking of what they may ultimately gain—disregarding the trauma that will remain with Urania for the rest of her life, rendering it impossible for her to enjoy said benefits.

“[Pupo] never allowed anyone to treat him with disrespect. But, like so many officers, so many Dominicans, before Trujillo his valor and sense of honor disappeared, and he was overcome by a paralysis of his reason and his muscles, by servile obedience and reverence.” 

Pupo’s reaction to Trujillo recalls Antonio de la Maza’s past: De la Maza was able to battle Trujillo from afar, but as soon as he was brought within Trujillo’s presence, he lost all nerve. Pupo suffers something similar, with disastrous results as seen in his paralysis after Trujillo’s assassination.

“As the chauffeur drove [Balaguer] to the National Palace […] he foresaw the next few hours: confrontations between rebellious and loyal garrisons, and possible military intervention by the United States. Washington would require some constitutional pretense to take that action, and at this moment, the President of the Republic represented legality. True, his post was purely decorative. But with Trujillo dead, it was taking on reality. The transformation from mere figurehead to the authentic Head of State of the Dominican Republic depended on his conduct.” 

This passage demonstrates Balaguer’s quick thinking and ability to look ahead, which enables him to consolidate power in the assassination’s aftermath. Where brute force fails, composed intellect prevails.

“Before [Balaguer] fell asleep, he felt a sudden surge of pity. Not for the prisoners, undoubtedly slaughtered this afternoon by Ramfis in person, but for the three young soldiers whom Trujillo’s son also had murdered in order to give an appearance of truth to the farce of the flight. Three poor guards killed in cold blood, to give the veneer of reality to a ridiculous sham no one would ever believe.” 

Balaguer willingly sacrifices the conspirators to move the Dominican Republic toward its democratic future—with Balaguer at the helm—but feels sad over the innocent guards Ramfis murdered. The conspirators sowed the wind and reaped the whirlwind; the guards were simply doing their duty.

“When [Imbert’s] domestic chores were concluded, he read for many hours. He had never been a great reader, but in those six months he discovered the pleasure of books and magazines, which were his best defense against the periodic depression brought on by confinement, routine, and uncertainty.”

During his confinement, Imbert, like Urania, found solace in books and studying. A man of action for most of his life, he discovered true strength in cultivating his intellect during his darkest hour.

“Without believing much of what he saw and read, [Imbert] followed the confused dualism of the path the regime had embarked upon: a civilian government led by Balaguer, who made reassuring gestures and statements asserting that the country was democratizing, and a military and police power, headed by Ramfis, that continued to kill, torture, and disappear people with the same impunity as when the Chief was alive. Yet he could not help feeling encouraged by the return of the exiles, the appearance of small opposition papers […] and student demonstrations against the government, which were sometimes reported in the official media, though only to accuse the protesters of being Communists.” 

In the junta the conspirators sought, Pupo would have been head of the military instead of Ramfis, but in line with what they plotted, Balaguer becomes a true president. Balaguer presents the public face of democracy and reform but understands that only by rooting out its opponents can he move the country forward, and he turns a blind eye toward Ramfis’s escapades. Even so, he lets Ramfis know that when the time comes, he will not hesitate to ask Ramfis to leave. Imbert is skeptical about the direction of Balaguer’s presidency, but he sees sprigs of democracy pop up here and there, and thus has hope.