The Feast of the Goat (Spanish: La Fiesta del Chivo) is a 2000 novel by the Peruvian Nobel Prize in Literature laureate Mario Vargas Llosa.

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.

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's themes include the nature of power and corruption, and their relationship to machismo or sexual perversion in a rigidly hierarchical society with strongly gendered roles.

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.

This storyline is largely introspective, dealing with Urania's memories and her inner turmoil over the events preceding her departure from the Dominican Republic thirty-five years earlier.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 subsequent lifetime of celibacy and emotional trauma.

[14] 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",[7] modernized the country's infrastructure and military, but whose regime's attack 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.

[12] 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"[16] are attributed.

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.

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".

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.

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.

"[25] 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.

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.

She was the victim of sexual abuse at the hands of Trujillo 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 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.

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.

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).

"[51] 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.

[21] 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.

Salon reviewer Laura Miller,[52] writer for The Observer Jonathan Heawood,[53] Walter Kirn,[54] and Michael Wood[55] 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.

[57] 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.