Conflict between authoritarianism and liberalization: The Feast of the Goat by Mario Vargas Llosa

Abstract

Vargas Llosa worked on the terms by clarifying and illustrating the liberal principles that underpin it through a detailed examination of his most recent novel the Feast of the Goat (2000). The goal of this reading of the novel is not to evaluate the text's socio-historical fidelity or to investigate the mimetic processes of the narrative; however interesting these concerns may be, they are the subject of a different type of study. Instead, this article will focus on the novel's exploration of the conflict between authoritarianism and liberalism, specifically between the tyrants will to power and the people's free will, in terms of democratic practice and individual liberty. Vargas Llosa's novel can be traced back to the mid-1970s when he filmed Captain Pantoja and the Special Service in the Dominican Republic. However, as Vargas Llosa (in Jaggi 2002:31) notes, “Fujimori was quite different from Trujillo, a more mediocre tyrant.” Money was his main ambition and appetite. What Trujillo desired was power. However, Vargas Llosa's novel differs from the dictator novels of Bastos, Carpentier, and Marquez.