The Feast of the Beast 2.0

A bit post festum, I realize, but better than never, right? Right?...pause...[followed by a very high-pitched]RIghT?

Thus far I have not really addressed the gender issues and I think this book, better than the others we've read, really captures the positions of powerlessness and subordination that most women faced in these dictatorships. Of course, we get accounts of brutal treatment of women in Facundo, or, as in the case of The President, their inability to have any influence on what happens. In I the Supreme and The General in His Labyrinth, we get accounts of women as sexual objects, there to satisfy the needs of the dictators...though Manuela Saenz plays a prominant role in Garcia Marquez's novel. Still, she is left behind...discarded alomost. This brings me to the position of women in The Feast of the Goat and the novel's more detailed, and certainly more graphic, accounts of violence against women.

Of course, what immediately jumps out at us with this novel is that it starts with Urania's arrival in the Dominican Republic and is essentially written from her point of view. This book, then, is not merely about Trujillo and his fall, but perhaps, even more so, about Urania and her personal journey to rid herself of the trauma of her rape, or rather, to make it more bearable because she will never be rid of it. The Urania plot really takes off in the second part of the book and, although we are told what happened to her at the end of the novel, there are hints throughout the book (ex. Trujillo remembering the girl at Mahagony House...you just get the sense that that girl is Urania). The part where she describes the events at 'the party' is very intense and difficult to read and, of course, explains why she behaves the way she does to her father and her family.

The power that men have over women in this book is also seen in the accounts of the rapes and violence committed against young girls by Ramfis & co.

There are women in this book who do hold some power, or who are not necessarily mere sex objects. I am thinking of Minerva Mirabal and my friend Lupe. The former is severly punished (arrested, tortured and eventually killed) for her 'transgressions' while the latter's male posturing makes her look ridiculous despite the reports that she has a lot of blood on her hands. Nevertheless, both these cases show, to some extent at least, that women cannot have power unless they behave like men.

Finally, the power of the dictator in this novel is accentuated by constant references to Trujillo's gaze. Other than his name, I would hazzard a guess that the word "gaze" appears most often with regard to the dictator. This is, in part, what intimidates people and gets them to do what he wants. I couldn't help but recall the issue of panopticism here. It is as if everyone in this novel is a prisoner and the guard that i s Trujillo keeps a constant watch on them. This, of course, is a common feature of dictatorships--eyes of power everywhere, with the poewer to alter beahviour--and it is present in all the books we've read.

While this book has its bits of humour, it is probably the most graphic, and therefore, the darkest, of the books we've read in this class. Just my humble opinion.