The Feast of The Goat - Fact and Fiction

Fact and Fiction

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. 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."