The Feast of the Goat

This novel examines power and its ability to corrupt. What is the nature of power? To what extent is the old saying, that “absolute power corrupts absolutely” true? Use the text to develop your arguments.

Feast is a work of historical fiction, a genre which blends true, factual events with creative, imaginative ones; works in the genre sometimes make claims about the eras they depict, or they may simply use the eras as backgrounds. To what extent does Feast make specific claims about the Trujillo Era? What are those claims?

Discuss the relationship between fictional and nonfictional elements of the work. In what ways do the fictional elements strengthen or undermine the true events of the era? In what ways is this novel different than a pure history, and what value, if any, does this approach have as a literary device?