 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 <unk> , 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 <unk> to conceive it ) . " 
