NOLI ME TANGERE

CHAPTER VI
"The Novel is the first impartial and bold account of the life of the tagalogs.
The Filipinos will find in it the history of the last ten years…“
- Dr. Jose Rizal –

“The Spaniards did us a lot of good. But we too gave them a lot: the most
precious things they required: blood, lands, lives and that freedom which
is the first and best gift of humankind.”
- Dr. Jose Rizal –

Objectives:

At the end of this chapter, the students will be able to:

1. Explain the reasons for writing the novel, “Noli Me Tangere”.

2. Enumerate significant characters of the “Noli Me Tangere”.
3. Visualize the social ills existed during the Spanish times.
4. Make a comparative study of the social ills existed during Spanish times and as of today.

Among the many books which he read, two made an especially deep impression upon him. The first book
was Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin, which had been such a potent factor in arousing American
sentiment against slavery before Lincoln finally issued the emancipation proclamation. He says that it aroused in
him so much sympathy for the unfortunates that he was willing to risk everything to help them. Rizal talked to
some Filipinos in Madrid about these books, and offered to cooperate with other Filipinos in preparing a book
about the Philippines which would do for his country what Uncle Tom's Cabin had done for America. Some either
opposed the idea or trifled with it, so Rizal determined to try it alone. After each day's work, Rizal spent his
evenings writing the beginnings of his first book. This was how the novel Noli Me Tangere was conceived.

Jose Rizal was in Berlin when he made some final revisions of the the Noli Me Tangere. But he was
penniless. He lived in poverty. And he was flat broke. Out of hunger and desperation, he almost threw it into the
fireplace the original manuscript of the novel.

In the midst of his misery, Rizal received a telegram form Dr. Maximo Viola, who comes from a rich family
in Bulacan, was coming to Berlin. When Viola, arrived in Berlin, he was shocked to find the condition of Jose
Rizal. Upon seeing his friend’s predicament, Viola readily agreed to finance the printing of the novel. He even
loaned Rizal some amount for his daily expenses.

After Christmas season, Rizal made some finishing touches on the novel. To save money on the printing
cost, Jose deleted the chapter about “Elias and Salome”. On February 1887, the Noli was finally finished and
ready for printing. Jose with Viola, who had lent him money for printing, went to different printing shops in Berlin
to survey the cost of the printing. Finally, they found a printing shop - Berliner Buchdruckrei-Action-Gesselschaft
- which charged them of lowest rate of Php 300 for 2,000 copies.

On March 21, 1887, the Noli Me Tangere, a Latin phrase which means “touch me not”, is taken from the
gospel of St. John, came off the press. Rizal immediately sent copies to his intimate friends including Ferdinand
Blumentritt. On March 29, 1887, as a token of appreciation and gratitude, gave Viola the original manuscripts of
Noli Me Tangere. He carefully rolled it around the pen that he used in writing the novel and a complimentary
copy of the book with the following inscription: “To my dear friend, Maximo Viola, the first to read and
appreciate my work – Jose Rizal…”
 The friends of Rizal who read the novel were greatly impressed and commended him for coming out a
marvelous novel. Dr. Antonio Ma. Regidor, wrote to Rizal saying:

“If the Quixote immortalizes its author because it exposes to the world the ailments of Spain. Noli Me
Tangere will bring you an equal glory. With your modesty and your voracious and able appraisal, you have
dealt a mortal blow to that old tree full of blemishes and decay. Every Filipino patriot will read your book with
amity and upon discovering in every line a veracious idea and in every word of fitting advice, he will be
inspired and he regard your book as the masterpiece of a Filipino and the proof that those who ought as
incapable of producing great intellects are mistaken on lying.”

From the top, all that is best in Philippine life:

 Woman - symbolizing constancy (Maria
Clara)
 tombstone - religious faith and suffering
 laurel (courage) and the flower of the
pomelo, worn by bride and groom at a
wedding symbolizing purity.

The words partly covered by the title are the secret,

inner dedication by Rizal to his parents:

“A mis Padres”
Al escribir esta obra he estado pensando
continuamente en vosotros que me habeis
infundido los primeros pensamientos y las
primeras ideas; a vosotros os dedico este
manuscrito de me joventud com prueba de
amor. Berlin, (21 de Febrero de) 1887.

To the left of the title:

 the flower mirasol - representing youth
seeking the sun
 The author's name - meaning the green of
renewal, mounting up into the green of
the most enduring of all Philippine trees,
the bamboo.
 Bamboo - resilience

At the bottom, all that is worst in Philippine life:

 helmet of the Civil Guard – arrogance of
those in authority
 the whip - instruments of torture
 the foot of a friar (a man in a cassock with
hairy feet) priests using religion in a dirty
way

I. Summary of Noli Me Tangere

Having completed his studies in Europe, young Juan Crisostomo Ibarra y Magsalin comes back to the
Philippines after a 7-year absence. In his honor, Don Santiago de los Santos, a family friend commonly known as
Captain Tiago, threw a get-together party, which was attended by friars and other prominent figures. One of the
guests, former San Diego curate Fray Damaso Vardolagas belittled and slandered Ibarra. Ibarra brushed off the
insults and took no offense; he instead politely excused himself and left the party because of an allegedly
important task.
The next day, Ibarra visits María Clara, his betrothed, the beautiful daughter of Captain Tiago and
affluent resident of Binondo. Their long-standing love was clearly manifested in this meeting, and María Clara
cannot help but reread the letters her sweetheart had written her before he went to Europe. Before Ibarra left for
San Diego, Lieutenant Guevara, a Civil Guard, reveals to him the incidents preceding the death of his father, Don
Rafael Ibarra, a rich haciendero of the town. According to Guevara, Don Rafael was unjustly accused of being a
heretic, in addition to being a subservient — an allegation brought forth by Damaso because of Don Rafael's non-
participation in the Sacraments, such as Confession and Mass. Damaso's animosity against Ibarra's father is
aggravated by another incident when Don Rafael helped out on a fight between a tax collector and a child
fighting, and the former's death was blamed on him, although it was not deliberate. Suddenly, all of those who
thought ill of him surfaced with additional complaints. He was imprisoned, and just when the matter was almost
settled, he died of sickness in jail. Still not content with what he had done, Damaso arranged for Don Rafael's
corpse to be dug up from the Catholic Church and brought to a Chinese cemetery, because he thought it
inappropriate to allow a heretic a Catholic burial ground. Unfortunately, it was raining and because of the
bothersome weight of the body, the undertakers decide to throw the corpse into a nearby lake.
Revenge was not in Ibarra's plans, instead he carried through his father's plan of putting up a school,
since he believed that education would pave the way to his country's progress (all over the novel the author
refers to both Spain and the Philippines as two different countries as part of a same nation or family, with Spain
seen as the mother and the Philippines as the daughter). During the inauguration of the school, Ibarra would
have been killed in a sabotage had Elías — a mysterious man who had warned Ibarra earlier of a plot to
assassinate him — not saved him. Instead the hired killer met an unfortunate incident and died. The sequence of
events proved to be too traumatic for María Clara who got seriously ill but was luckily cured by the medicine
Ibarra sent.
After the inauguration, Ibarra hosted a luncheon during which Damaso, gate-crashing the luncheon,
again insulted him. Ibarra ignored the priest's insolence, but when the latter slandered the memory of his dead
father, he was no longer able to restrain himself and lunged at Damaso, prepared to stab him for his impudence.
As a consequence, Damaso excommunicated Ibarra, taking this opportunity to persuade the already-hesitant
Tiago to forbid his daughter from marrying Ibarra. The friar wished María Clara to marry Linares, a Peninsularwho
had just arrived from Spain.
With the help of the Governor-General, Ibarra's excommunication was nullified and the Archbishop
decided to accept him as a member of the Church once again. But, as fate would have it, some incident of which
Ibarra had known nothing about was blamed on him, and he is wrongly arrested and imprisoned. The accusation
against him was then overruled because during the litigation that followed, nobody could testify that he was
indeed involved. Unfortunately, his letter to María Clara somehow got into the hands of the jury and is
manipulated such that it then became evidence against him by the parish priest, Fray Salví. With Machiavellian
precision, Salví framed Ibarra and ruined his life just so he could stop him from marrying María Clara and making
the latter his concubine.
Meanwhile, in Capitan Tiago's residence, a party was being held to announce the upcoming wedding of
María Clara and Linares. Ibarra, with the help of Elías, took this opportunity to escape from prison. Before leaving,
Ibarra spoke to María Clara and accused her of betraying him, thinking that she gave the letter he wrote her to
the jury. María Clara explained that she would never conspire against him, but that she was forced to surrender
Ibarra's letter to Father Salvi, in exchange for the letters written by her mother even before she, María Clara, was
born. The letters were from her mother, Pía Alba, to Damaso alluding to their unborn child; and that María Clara
was therefore not Captain Tiago's biological daughter, but Damaso's.
Afterwards, Ibarra and Elías fled by boat. Elías instructed Ibarra to lie down, covering him with grass to
conceal his presence. As luck would have it, they were spotted by their enemies. Elías, thinking he could outsmart
them, jumped into the water. The guards rained shots on him, all the while not knowing that they were aiming at
the wrong man.
María Clara, thinking that Ibarra had been killed in the shooting incident, was greatly overcome with grief.
Robbed of hope and severely disillusioned, she asked Dámaso to confine her into a nunnery. Dámaso reluctantly
agreed when she threatened to take her own life, demanding, "The nunnery or death!" Unknown to her, Ibarra
was still alive and able to escape. It was Elías who had taken the shots.
It was Christmas Eve when Elías woke up in the forest fatally wounded, as it is here where he instructed
Ibarra to meet him. Instead, Elías found the altar boy Basilio cradling his already-dead mother, Sisa. The latter
lost her mind when she learned that her two sons, Crispín and Basilio, were chased out of the convent by the
sacristan mayor on suspicions of stealing sacred objects. (The truth is that, it was the sacristan mayor who stole
the objects and only pinned the blame on the two boys. The said sacristan mayor actually killed Crispín while
interrogating him on the supposed location of the sacred objects. It was implied that the body was never found
and the incident was covered-up by Salví).
Elías, convinced that he would die soon, instructs Basilio to build a funeral pyre and burn his and Sisa's
bodies to ashes. He tells Basilio that, if nobody reaches the place, he come back later on and dig for he will find
gold. He also tells him (Basilio) to take the gold he finds and go to school. In his dying breath, he instructed
Basilio to continue dreaming about freedom for his motherland with the words: “I shall die without seeing
the dawn break upon my homeland. You, who shall see it, salute it! Do not forget those who have
fallen during the night." Elías died thereafter.

II. Characters of Noli Me Tangere

Juan Crisostomo Ibarra - He is the only son of Don Rafael Ibarra, the richest person in San Diego.
He studied in Europe for 7 years, and is the sweetheart of Maria Clara.

Maria Clara - She is the girlfriend of Ibarra. She is the daughter of Kapitan Tiyago and Doña Pia Alba, but
biologically, her father is Padre Damaso.

Sisa - Mother of Basilio and Crispin. She has a drunkard for a husband. In the novel Sisa portrays a loving
mother, and it could be assumed that Rizal likened her to his own mother. Sisa is being maltreated by
the Spaniards; similarly, our country is being abused by the Spaniards.

Doña Pia Alba - She is the mother of Maria Clara and the wife of Kapitan Tiyago. She symbolizes our country,
which ceaselessly gives in to foreign power.

Capitan Tiago - The father of Maria Clara. He is sometimes lovable, and sometimes annoying. He is very biased
and is only obedient to those who are higher in rank than him. He has money on a pedestal.

Fray Damaso - He is the first parish priest in San Diego. He is very abusive. He symbolizes the Spanish friars of
Rizal's time.

Fray Salvi - He is a Franciscan parish priest of San Diego.Because he is interested in Maria Clara, he and Padre
Damaso devised a plan to break Ibarra and Maria Clara apart. They were successful.

Doña Victorina - Her fanatical adulation of the Spaniards leads her to imitate the very actions and attitudes of
the Spanish women. She may symbolizes the Filipinos in our society who are ashamed of their own race and
nationality.

Doña Consolacion - She is a Filipino woman married to a Spaniard. Her very actions and way of dressing will
lead people to think that she is a prostitute.

Elias - He believes that justice can be obtained only through revolution --- reforms simply won't do.
He symbolizes the very root of the Filipino culture before the coming of the Spaniards, which remained strong
and unbroken by the Spanish culture.

Pilosopong Tasyo - He is a wise man. He embodies the intelligent people, who never left the country but
instead educated themselves in a religious institution.