José Rizal, a Filipino nationalist and polymath, conceived the idea of writing a novel that would

expose the backwardness and lack of progress of Philippine society because of the burden of
colonization. According to historian Carlos Quirino, the novel bears similarities in terms of
characterization and plot to the Spanish novelist Benito Pérez Galdós' "Doña Perfecta".[5] Rizal
intended to express the way Filipino culture was perceived to be backward, anti-progress, anti-
intellectual, and not conducive to the ideals of the Age of Enlightenment. At the time he was a
student of medicine at the Universidad Central de Madrid.
Other Filipinos were also working or studying in Madrid, which as the capital of Spain was the center
of culture and universities. At a gathering on January 2, 1884, of friends at the house of Pedro A.
Paterno, Rizal proposed that a group of Filipinos should collaborate on a novel about the Philippines.
His proposal was unanimously approved by those present, among whom were Pedro, Máximo
Viola and Antonio Paterno, Graciano López Jaena, Evaristo Aguirre, Eduardo de Lete, Julio
Llorente, and Valentin Ventura. However, they never got into the project. Although agreeing to help,
none of the others wrote anything. Initially, Rizal planned for the novel to encompass all phases of
Filipino life, but most of his friends, all young males, wanted to write about women. Rizal saw that his
companions spent more time gambling and flirting with Spanish women than writing. Because of
this, he decided to draft the novel alone.

Plot