Donoso obsessive subject is the decay of the Chilean bourgeoisie, but he vigorously rejects anything reminiscent of traditional realism or the portrayal of regional customs. In This Sunday (1966), he focuses on a family's activities on Sundays in order to view the boredom, passions, and misery of Chilean bourgeois society and its servants. The Obscene Bird of Night (1970) deals with the decline of feudal society through the story of a landholding family in a kaleidoscopic vision of decay and outrageous behavior.